MediaTek has announced an enhanced strategic collaboration with Micromax Informatics, India's leading handset player. The partnership aims to accelerate 4G accessibility and fuel faster smartphone adoption in India's rapidly growing market, the chip provider said.

MediaTek disclosed that as part of its India roadmap, the company announced the availability of its Helio-series SoCs targeted at high-end smartphones; and the intention for Micromax to become the first Indian brand to launch a device on the new Helio platform using the Helio X10.

MediaTek and Micromax have also released a mid-range 4G LTE phone – Micromax Canvas Fire 4G – running on MediaTek's MT6735, the chip provider indicated.

"India is the next 4G LTE smartphone battleground and key to MediaTek's mission to power billions of devices globally," said Finbarr Moynihan, GM of international sales at MediaTek. "With MediaTek's wide portfolio of LTE products from entry to premium, we have the right business and technology strategy, along with local collaborations to make LTE a reality for Indian consumers."

"India is at the cusp of digital revolution and at Micromax Informatics we have been putting in concerted efforts to bring the best in class 4G LTE smartphones to take Internet usage to an unprecedented level. Today's partnership exemplifies the same endeavor and we are delighted to partner with MediaTek for its Helio family," said Vineet Taneja, CEO for Micromax. "Moving forward, we will lead the 4G adoption in the country by converting all our popular value Canvas series to 4G. Canvas Fire 4G is the first in a series of such launches."

MediaTek has invested in India since 2007, collaborating with Indian brands. India represents MediaTek's second largest market globally, the fabless chipmaker said. MediaTek also claimed that the company is the top smartphone SoC supplier to Indian brands and has the largest market share of chipsets in mobile devices sold in India.

According to Strategy Analytics, India is forecast to overtake Japan to be the world's third-largest 4G LTE market by 2017, and surpass the US the same year to be the world's second-largest smartphone market.