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Large tech-savvy population drives massive IoT opportunities for Quectel in India

India’s large population, vast size, and tech-savvy market presents an enormous opportunity for innovation and for the development of IoT, in particular. India is a highly diversified market that accommodates a broad range of requirements, and the nation has become a hub for global design and development of products, thanks in part to the very large talent pool of engineers. The combination of this skills base, the appetite of consumers, and the country’s emergence as a development powerhouse attracted Quectel Wireless Solutions to set up its operation in India.

With a direct presence in India for more than a decade, the Quectel team has grown in size to more than 20 people, in excess of 50 percent of which are engineers. In addition to its direct business, Quectel also engages with various local and global distributors that serve the Indian marketplace to ensure the supply chain is catered for.

Although many see high population density as a challenge India faces, the density in fact is an advantage for the consumer and IoT markets because it creates a very large market to address with IoT products and services. Being able to serve people with massive IoT solutions that truly improve quality of life and build a smarter world is a core Quectel target and one that has seen numerous examples over the last five years.

India is maturing rapidly and connectivity has become a buzzword with more and more devices getting connected and requiring high data rates along with lower latencies. Use cases, such as distant and remote education, will harness the latest technologies, including 5G, but these are just a couple of examples in which Quectel can empower organizations with the latest innovative technologies.

5G itself is a little delayed in India compared to some other countries. The challenges of being a large nation and having inertia toward adopting new and expensive technology have slowed the adoption but the arrival of 5G will bring dramatic changes. We see applications in direct-to-home services, medical services, entertainment, the automotive sector, and several industries that will achieve clear gains for transferring huge volumes of data with lower latencies.

Being able to access high-speed internet connectivity in remote places, such as rural areas where the reach of fiber is restricted or limited, means new applications will be brought to life by 5G. We foresee the usage of drones in applica­tions for agriculture, security, surveillance, and for faster deliveries. In addition, healthcare could also harness the power of IoT by enabling remote access to medical practitioners and specialists when it is not prac­tical for citizens to travel long distances for consultations.

Certainly, Quectel has supplied a broad remit of Indian companies with products and services during the last decade. Most recently, our SC600T module has been chosen by Teksun Microsys to power its system-on-module (SOM) that enables developers to verify their concepts and turn their ideas into reality. This module is ideal for proof-of-concept projects that form the foundation upon which innovators can build the next mass market service or product. Teksun, which has a team of more than 300 engineers in India, offers systems integration and electronics manufacturing alongside its product design and development capabilities.

“We faced several challenges in this system-on-module, and the ability to charge batteries using the internal battery-charging circuit of SC600T has been an issue to address,” says Jignesh Rameshbhai Rane, the Program Manager at Teksun Microsys. “We chose Quectel for product reliability and after-sales support, and also Quectel’s ability to offer technical support to developers. The product features of three cameras and two LCD interfaces were important to us along with in-built LTE Cat-6, GPS, and Wi-Fi availability. We also value the Snapdragon 625 processor, which has wide usability plus the expandable memory and octa-core ARM Cortex-A5364-bit CPU.”

Another example is in the fleet management industry where Intangles, a specialist in transforming fleet management and operations through the use of digital twins, has selected 2G and 4G modules from Quectel to power its physics-based analytics and machine learning-enabled offerings. The company’s solutions are currently powering vehicles for more than 6000 fleet operators across 11 countries, allowing for predictive insights, theft prevention, and improved driver behavior. The Quectel M66 module has been selected by Intangles as a reliable 2G option at a lower cost, while the Quectel EC20 has been chosen as an LTE option for Intangles OEM customers. The company has also specified the Quectel EG91 module because it allows Intangles to design a very compact solution.

“The data collected from the vehicle gives the customer an insight into vehicle health, fuel pilferage, and driving behavior,” explains Jayshri Patil, the Head of Embedded Systems at Intangles. “This leads to improvements in the overall performance of the vehicle and increase in the life of the asset by reducing its downtime. With other modems, we encountered interfacing issues with the vehicle ECU in the ECU FOTA project with our OEM partners. Quectel’s EC20 module helped us overcome these issues and saw us complete this project conforming to the OEM requirements.”

Patil adds that the technical support Intangles has received from Quectel field application engineers has helped the company to design its product rapidly and enter the market in a short period of time. She cites the constant supply of modules as being important in meeting customers’ needs as well as consistent pricing that does not fluctuate drastically as being key advantages from selecting Quectel.

“The features of the module and its performance at the price point offered helps us to deliver a state-of-the-art product to our customers,” she says. “In addition to the modules, Quectel helps us with certification for our pro­duct, antenna tuning, and hardware design verification.”

In the automotive industry, iWave has chosen Quectel’s EC25 module for inclusion in its OBD II device. The LTE module is optimized for IoT and delivers 150 Mbit/s downlink and 50 Mbit/s uplink peak data rates, making it ideal for high-speed automotive applications. The device is sold into vehicle insurance vendors, cab aggregators, asset tracking, connected car, and two-wheeler markets.

“As a compact, secure, and reliable connected-car device, our OBD II can track a vehicle and monitor the driving behavior and car diagnostics remotely from your mobile/PC or other device and Quectel’s EC25 module made these functions possible,” says Zafeer Feroz, Associate Director – Business Development at iWave Systems Technologies.

These are just some examples of how Quectel is able to bring its global experience in IoT and wireless technology and its knowledge of emerging use cases to India. Quectel India has enabled many more use cases and success stories in the Indian market and is reaping the rewards of being an early entrant to the Indian market. Our direct presence alongside our distributors is backed by in-country specialists for individual verticals including antennas, GNSS, the automotive sector, and others.

We are proud to be building our presence in India. The country’s large geography and population provides an enormous opportunity for IoT product development and market introduction at a massive scale. Part of this involves extending IoT, so it reaches the extreme corners of the country irrespective of population density. Quectel, as a global IoT solutions provider, is looking forward to continuing to collaborate with Indian developers and to help bring new IoT products and services that build a smarter world into reality.

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