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y the end of 2015, it is predicted that as many as 145 million Indonesians will have access to the Internet, the majority of whom will be doing it through their mobile phones. Already one of the biggest 3G markets in the world, telecommunication industry players believe Indonesia is headed in the right direction. To explain his perspective on Indonesia'€™s telecommunication growth potential and infrastructure challenges, Qualcomm Inc. Southeast Asia regional head Mantosh Malhotra sat down with The Jakarta Post'€™s contributor Sondang Grace Sirait.

Question: Indonesia is among the biggest 3G markets in the world with growing numbers of wireless broadband users. What do these facts mean to you?

Answer: It'€™s interesting you brought it up because I never get tired of saying this internally in my organization: Indonesia is very important to the global telecommunication market, and definitely for Qualcomm as well. If you look at the population of Indonesia and the economy, it'€™s been doing reasonably well over the last few years. The population is getting more and more affluent. I think these things put together make a very, very good environment for the growth of telecommunications.

How does that translate into Qualcomm strategy in Indonesia?

From our perspective, what we'€™d like to see is the adoption of 3G/4G devices in the market. We firmly believe that high-end devices, by which I mean technologically capable devices and not necessarily costly devices, do have direct socioeconomic benefits to consumers, the public of Indonesia or any country.

From our business perspective, I think it'€™s a huge opportunity for Qualcomm to grow its business here in Indonesia. If you look at the market today, roughly 30-35 percent of subscribers have 3G/4G devices. The remainder is still on 2G, so it'€™s a huge opportunity for us to migrate those 2G subscribers to 3G/4G in the coming years. And that'€™s where our focus is and that'€™s where we'€™re putting all our effort.

The prices of even the cheapest Android smartphones are falling to as little as US$50. In what way do your processors contribute to the affordability of smartphones these days?

In terms of Qualcomm'€™s role, we make chipsets that go inside the phone. Now, what we'€™re doing is we cater all the way from the high-end devices to more affordable devices. As a technology company and as a semi-conductor and chipset company, we have different tiers of chipsets and you will find us in the very high-end state-of-the-art devices, you'€™ll find us in the mid-end devices, and also in affordable devices, which is a sweet spot for a market like Indonesia. What we are doing is developing high quality, high-end chips at an affordable price but also at the same time trying to bring the mobile ecosystem together.

A chip on its own doesn'€™t mean much. You have to have the right partners there. You'€™ve got to have the handset manufacturers, the content developers, the right regulatory environment in each country. One of the examples that I like to use is we have this program called QRD, Qualcomm Reference Design. It'€™s basically designing the basics of a phone and giving it to manufacturers in places like China, where they don'€™t have to do the heavy lifting of designing a phone from scratch.

They already get the design from us and then it'€™s their job to come up with the final product. They have the design, they put the plastic around it, they can modify the software, they have the flexibility to modify what we give them, but the basic building blocks are given to them through this program. As a result, you can have companies with very low R&D investment and low manufacturing investment come up with affordable devices that then feed into the market.

Are prices as low as they get now?

It'€™s hard to predict where the bottom is going to be. At some point some people have to make some money, but I think the good news is you'€™ll start seeing 4G device prices similar to 3G, if not in the next three or four months, definitely in the coming year, and Qualcomm is definitely playing an integral role in that.

Is the infrastructure development in Indonesia keeping up with technological growth?

If you look at the technologies that are available in Indonesia from a mobile perspective, they'€™re definitely out there. I wouldn'€™t say Indonesia is cutting edge right now, I mean it'€™s usually more developed countries like Australia, the US, Singapore, that will adopt next generation technology first. But I don'€™t think Indonesia is far behind. The challenge that Indonesia faces, and this is more of a socioeconomic challenge, is more the affordability. We'€™re looking beyond mobile devices and handsets now. Connected homes, machine-to-machine, IOT (Internet of Things) and those kinds of things. In terms of availability of technology it'€™s there, in terms of mass adoption, probably not as much as some of the developed markets.