Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Nokia to manufacture base station controllers in India
Our Corporate Bureau / Mumbai June 01, 2005
Nokia, the Finnish telecom major, will set up a high-end base station controller, a key mobile equipment manufacturing unit in Chennai. Thus, Nokia becomes the only telecom vendor to manufacture both network infrastructure and terminals in India.
In April, Nokia had announced an investment of Rs 650 crore ($ 150 million) to set up a mobile handset production facility in Chennai.
The production of base station controller is expected to begin at the same time with that of terminal production, during the first half of 2006.
“Nokia is confident of India’s skilled labor force’s ability to handle the manufacturing of high-end network infrastructure elements, such as base station controllers. Chennai was a natural choice for us as we are already establishing a production facility there,” said Simon Beresford-Wylie, executive vice-president and general manager of networks, Nokia.
The announcement comes in the wake of aggressive expansion of all GSM service providers in the country over the next few years.
In India, Nokia Networks is a leading GSM infrastructure equipment supplier and supplies to all of the top five GSM operators in the country.
“India is already among the top five telecom markets in the world and is set to reach the third position in the next few years. In order to sustain this growth, rapid expansion of mobile networks will be essential. Nokia’s investment in local base station controller manufacturing aims to meet this requirement and reiterates its long standing commitment to India,” he added.
Nokia’s operations in India include three research and development facilities, besides the upcoming manufacturing facility in Chennai.