Nokia plant in India to roll out handsets in 2006

Nokia plant in India to roll out handsets in 2006

Singapore, June. 19 : The proposed production unit of Finnish cellular handset maker Nokia, in India would roll out products in the second half of 2006, said a top company official.

nokia chennai "The Chennai plant would start rolling out handsets after June next year," Nokia's Senior Vice President (Asia Pacific) Rajeev Suri, said.

Investment for the 10th global production unit in Chennai has been pegged in the range of 100-150 million dollars.

Nokia is committed to offering high quality handsets to the Indian market, one the main booming markets in Asia Pacific at low cost, Suri said.

In order to ensure low cost voice and data delivery, the company is focusing on site-less base stations in places like Bihar and Rajasthan where telecom density is yet to pick-up.

Though GSM network is still dominant in India, Suri said, the 3G (third generation) mobile communication network is also making rapid inroads in the country.

The majority of voice network growth will come from lower income segments, he said and added "growth is driven by lower total cost of ownership."

Nokia estimates 300 million subscribers during 2005-08 in APAC region with the Indian market contributing half of this base.

On what would determine dominance in fiercely competitive mobile handset market in India, he said a combination of right pricing with economies of scale in production would be crucial in deciding market dominance.

How a company determines basic price for mobile handsets would be very crucial for gaining market dominance as there is not much price variation existing for entry level models, Suri said.

Nokia is committed to bringing all digital experiences in a customer's mobile handset, said Juha Putkriranta, Senior VP (Imaging).

He also said that camera phones are witnessing a higher growth (15 per cent) as against the conventional mobile phones whose growth is pegged at around 10 per cent or so.

The next stage of mobile imaging would entirely depend on overall better picture quality, Putkriranta added.

On strengthening foothold in operator driven CDMA market, Senior VP Timo Ihamoutila, said the company would have presence across all the segments - lower, mid and high - in India by the end of this year with introduction of six new models.

"These models would be available in the Indian market, if the carrier operators including Reliance want so," he added.

The Indian market is important even for the enterprise solutions, said Mathia Nalappan, VP (Enterprise Solutions).

The company plans to double its existing headcount at its enterprise solutions division based in Hyderabad, he added.

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