Samsung’s pledges 5G support for Indian smartphones by mid-November

Samsung will roll out OTA updates across all 5G devices by mid-November, the South Korean company said in a statement after the Department of Telecom (DoT) and the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) called a meeting with smartphone OEMs, chipmakers and telcos to accelerate the roll-out of 5G software update on 5G devices available in India. 

"Samsung has pioneered 5G technology development since 2009 and took the leading role in standardizing 5G technology globally. In India, Samsung has the widest portfolio of 5G devices. We are working closely with our operator partners and are committed to rolling out OTA updates across all our 5G devices by mid-November 2022, enabling Indian consumers to experience 5G seamlessly," said a Samsung India spokesperson.

A software update is required to remove the software lock on 5G frequency bands that are available in India. 

India has shipped 51 million 5G smartphones from 2020 to the first half of 2022 and will account for 50% of the smartphone shipments by 2023, according to an International Data Corporation (IDC) report, published in August. However, most of the 5G devices including Apple iPhones and Samsung devices available in India do not support 5G services at the moment. 

After the inauguration of 5G services by prime minister Narendra Modi at the Indian Mobile Congress (IMC) 2022 last week, Reliance Jio announced that it will start beta trials of its 5G network in four Indian cities including Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, and Varanasi from October 5. 

Airtel too has launched its 5G services in eight Indian cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Siliguri, Nagpur, and Varanasi.  

However, many users took to social media to show that their 5G devices do not support 5G services yet. For instance, iPhone users trying to activate Airtel 5G Plus were told that their “device manufacturer is yet to release a 5G software update.”

Apart from Samsung, Apple too said in a statement that 5G-ready iPhones in India will get the 5G software update by December. Early this week, Oppo announced that all Airtel customers can experience 5G connectivity on all 5G devices offered by the Chinese company in India.