Anil Ambani, Jacobs haggle for 5 hours, and then again

Volume discounts discussed in rounds of parleys with Qualcomm honcho.

NEW DELHI: Qualcomm CEO Paul E Jacobs’ last stop in India looks to be the most crucial one.

Along with senior executives of Qualcomm, he is learnt to have been in a meeting with Reliance Communications chief Anil Ambani for around five hours on Thursday. Jacobs also met Ambani for a second session over dinner in Mumbai.

Qualcomm ruled out royalty cut on CDMA handsets in his meeting with Ambani, so the two discussed volume-related discounts, sources said.

A number of opportunities related to volume discounts were discussed, Jacobs told the media after the marathon meeting. He did not elaborate on “volume”, but indicated that it did not necessarily mean subscriber base of an operator.  There can be a lot of things related to volumes, he is learnt to have said.

However, if Qualcomm takes into account subscriber base, Reliance Communications with around 20 million CDMA subscribers, would emerge the winner.

Since Reliance Communications recently indicated its plans to focus significantly on the GSM technology, it was important for Qualcomm to make things attractive for Ambani to continue with the CDMA platform.

In fact, a day before meeting Ambani, Jacobs had told the media that he would try to convince Ambani to continue with the CDMA platform. “It seems strange to move from a 3G technology (CDMA) back to a second-generation technology (GSM),” he had said.

Qualcomm officials have also met communications minister Dayanidhi Maran, Trai chairman Nripendra Misra and Tata group chairman Ratan Tata in this trip.