Tuesday, Mar 13, 2007
Nokia ships 25 m handsets from Chennai plant http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2007/03/13/stories/2007031302900400.htm
Our Bureau
Operations at Telecom Park to begin by 2008
New Delhi March 12
Finnish mobile handset manufacturer Nokia on Monday said that the company has reached a shipment volume of 25 million handsets, as on December 2006, from its manufacturing unit in Chennai. Nokia had started manufacturing mobile handsets a year back from the Sriperumbudur Special Economic Zone. The company said that it was progressing ahead on its four-year commitment of $150 million for the Indian plant, which currently employs 3,800 people, as against the projected 2,000, in the beginning of 2006.
As a part of the $150 million announced earlier, the factory is expanding the current floor space from 30,000 sq metres to 53,000 sq metres to cater to the booming cellular market which is growing at over 5 million users a month. Nokia currently uses 80 percent of the production for domestic consumption
New director
In a related move, Nokia India announced the appointment of Mr Sachin Saxena as its new Director-India Operations for the Chennai manufacturing factory. He takes over from Mr Jukka Lehtela. Mr Saxaena moves from LG Electronics with over 17 years of manufacturing and operations experience from Hindustan Lever, Whirlpool and more recently from LG.
"It is a moment of great pride for all of us at Nokia, especially for me, personally, to have been instrumental in creating a robust manufacturing facility in Sriperumbudur. Today the manufacturing ecosystem in the Nokia Telecom Park is coming together with several global component manufacturers expected to start operations by mid 2007," said Mr Lehtela.
"The Nokia manufacturing facility was formally inaugurated in March 2006 and has played a pivotal role in enabling Chennai to become the telecommunications manufacturing hub for the country," said a press release. The Nokia Telecom Park is spread over 210 acres and has 7 global component manufacturers already signed up and expected to commence operations within the Park by mid 2007. These include Salcomp, Aspocomp, Foxconn, Perlos, Laird, Jabil and Wintek.
The Nokia Telecom Park has the potential to employ 20,000 people by 2008 when it is fully operational.
Community initiatives
Nokia has also undertaken a number of community initiatives. These include the Chennai Factory Fence Line School Improvement Plans where it is working with students in and around Sriperumbudur to impart IT education programs and life skills. India is currently the third largest market for Nokia in terms of volumes and is expected to emerge as the second largest market by 2010 or even sooner. The plant in Chennai is its 15th global manufacturing facility.
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