IBM to triple investment in India
ROMA LUCIW
Globe and Mail Update
International Business Machines Corp. will triple its investment in India to $6-billion (U.S.) over the next three years, a sign of how important the developing country has become in the technology giant's operations.
The $6-billion will be used to expand the software, services and customer-support work IBM does in India, while also funding new service delivery centres in Bangalore and a telecommunications research facility in New Delhi.
Armonk, New York-based IBM is already the largest foreign employer in India.
IBM chief executive officer Samuel Palmisano made the announcement Tuesday in the southern Indian city of Bangalore, speaking to 10,000 employees. With more than 43,000 workers in 14 cities, India is IBM's largest country organization outside the United States, which has 125,000 of IBM's 330,000 people.
Mr. Palmisano said the company will triple its investment in India from $2-billion over the last three years to nearly $6-billion in the next three. IBM will also hire more staff in India although he did not specify how many.
In the past three years, the company has invested more than $2-billion in India and increased staff from 9,000 to 43,000, helped by the estimated $150 million acquisition of Indian back-office outsourcing provider Daksh eServices.
IBM is one of many technology companies that has been cutting its payrolls in the United States and Europe in order to move jobs to low-wage countries such as India.
IBM now has five software development centres in India along with an office to provide consulting services worldwide, helping Big Blue cut overall costs with less expensive labour and opening new connections to the fast-growing India market.
The new investments announced Tuesday "will ensure we make the most of the opportunities to grow this marketplace while it enables IBM to fulfill its vision to become a globally integrated company," Mr. Palmisano told 10,000 IBM employees and investment analysts at the company's facility in Bangalore.
Shares of IBM rose 34 cents or 0.4 per cent to $79.40 in New York.
With files from Associated Press.