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Kripa Raman

Mumbai , June 4

MOTOROLA has still not come to a conclusion on setting up manufacturing facilities in India, though there was much talk of it after Nokia's decision to do so.

However, the company is betting big on software delivery out of here and also has plans for growing its devices and network business here, said Mr Simon Leung, Regional President, Asia-Pacific.

"Forty per cent of all Motorola's global handset software delivery work is done out of India," he added.

The company has 2,000 people working at its software development centres and R&D labs in the country, and its manpower is set to grow at around 20 per cent annually for the next several years, said Mr Leung.

In addition to the company's own people, work has also been outsourced to companies such as TCS, Infosys, and Wipro.

In its acquisitions too, several of Motorola's target companies are those that might be headquartered in the US but have a larger presence in India than in the US, said Mr Leung.

For example, Boston-based Winphoria, a manufacturer of soft switches for mobile networks, has more people working in India than in Boston.

Motorola continues to be open to acquisitions. "We do continuous acquisitions on a regular basis - Motorola has made large investments and acquisitions of companies that are related to India. Even now, we have looked at a software company that has 80 per cent of its Indian operations here."

A manufacturing facility, on the other hand, calls for several things to be in place.

"We have to make sure our own suppliers can deliver; then we would need our supply chain to be established. It involves building a whole new eco-system," Mr Leung said.

On the devices front, where Motorola is not quite in the lead in India as it is in the US or Latin America, the company has very aggressive plans.

"We are going to present a challenge in India big-time. We are part of a GSM association's handset project where we have sub-$40 (less than Rs 2,000) handset that will be sold bundled with Airtel connections. We are talking to other operators too. At the same time, we are also looking at high-end users and multifunction handsets."

In networks and solutions, a major focus area for Motorola is going to be cable broadband.

"We are also looking at customers across the spectrum - Governments, institutions, corporates, homes, and ISPs, and offer them total telecommunication solutions. This means we can supply handsets, infrastructure, networks, software, automotive electronics, the works."

With India adding two million subscribers a month, something like the size of a city in the US, it is a very exciting market for Motorola, already one out of four wireless customers in India is using a Motorola network, he added.

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