| The manufacturing facility in Sriperumbudur, near Chennai, was formally inaugurated by Matti Vanhanen, prime minister of Finland, along with Surjit Singh Barnala, governor of Tamil Nadu, on Saturday. The facility currently employs over 1100 people and plans to scale up the headcount to over 2000-plus by the end of 2006. |
| Addressing the inauguration ceremony, Jorma Ollila, chairman and chief executive officer of Nokia Corporation, said India was expected to become the second biggest mobile device market in terms of volumes by 2010. Nokia will work closely with operators to lower the total cost of ownership and cost-efficient network solutions, he added. |
| Later addressing a press conference, Robert Andersson, executive vice-president (customer & market operations), Nokia Corporation, said the Indian mobile phone market was booming with an addition of about 4 million subscribers every month. Besides, the existing mobile customer base also offered huge potential as people prefer to buy newer handsets. |
| He said the Chennai facility, Nokia's 10th mobile handset facility across the globe, was a low-cost, high-volume manufacturing site with focused product portfolio and the most efficient mode of operations. In future, this facility would become an export centre, he added. |
| Jukka Lehtela, director, India operations, Nokia India Pvt Ltd, said the Chennai facility was set up in a record time of 23 weeks, from ground-breaking to first products. "It will be manufacturing high running and mid-range mobile handsets," he added. |
| Lehtela, however, declined to disclose details about the production capacity of the Chennai unit. The plant would also manufacture base station controllers. |
| The plant would start export of mobile handsets to Southeast Asian region during the second half of this fiscal. However, a major part of the production would go to domestic market. At any point, the export would not exceed more than 30 per cent of the production, he added. |
| Asked about the present and future investments, Lehtela said that Nokia's commitment to India was $150 million (about Rs 650 crore) over the next three years. |
| 10,000 jobs expected |
| Nokia Telecom Industry Park, that spans over 210-acre, expects to create 10,000 jobs in a few years, when most of Nokia's suppliers set their manufacturing base and start manufacturing at full capacity. |
| This park, a product-specific, special economic zone, located at about 40 km southwest of Chennai, is expected to attract a total of 8-10 global and domestic component suppliers and service providers. |
| Two global component suppliers, Aspocomp Group and Perlos Corporation, have announced investments to the tune of $82 million to set up their facilities in the park and two more suppliers are reported to have finalised their investment programmes. |
| As part of the expansion of its HDI (high density interconnections) business operations, Aspocomp Group will be setting up printed circuit board (PSB) plant in the park at an investment of about $70 million. However, the final estimate is expected to be made in the next few months, a company release said. |
| Stating that Chennai was the best place to locate its operations, Maija Liisa Frima, chief executive, Aspocomp, said at the press conference that its plant at the Nokia park would be India's first HDI PSB plant and it would become operational by the second half of 2007. |
| Perlos Corporation, a leading supplier of handset mechanics, will establish its manufacturing unit in the park at an investment of $12 million. The facility will be operational by early 2007 and will employ about 1000 people, a Perlos press release said. |
| Isto Hantila, president and chief executive officer, Perlos Corporation, said that the Chennai unit would offer services to mobile device handset manufacturers as well as to electronics manufacturing services companies in India. |
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