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Signs pact with State Govt; to make sub-$30 handsets

MR STU REED (left), Executive Vice-President, Integrated Supply Chain, Motorola Inc; Mr Dayanidhi Maran, Union Minister for Communication and Information Technology; and Mr Firdose Vandrevala, Chairman, Motorola India, at a press conference in Chennai on Wednesday. — Bijoy Ghosh

Chennai , June 7

Motorola will set up a manufacturing facility near Chennai with an initial investment of $30 million (Rs 135 crore), which will go up to $100 million (Rs 450 crore) within a year.

The company on Wednesday signed an agreement with the Tamil Nadu Government to establish the facility in the 300-acre Sriperumbudur Hi-Tech Special Economic Zone, coming up 40 km west of Chennai. The special economic zone is being jointly developed by the Tamil Nadu Government, Motorola and component suppliers such as FoxConn, a Taiwanese company. Motorola will set up its plant in 70 acres of land within the proposed SEZ.

The $37-billion US telecom company will manufacture sub-$30 (Rs 1,350) handsets — initially for the Indian market and later exports — said Mr Dayanidhi Maran, Union Minister of Communications and Information Technology.

The first phase of 2.50 lakh sq. ft will be ready by January 14, and about 3,000 employees would be working at the facility. The number of employees would increase to 7,500 by the end of second phase, he told newspersons.

According to Mr Stu Reed, Executive Vice-President, Integrated Supply Chain, Motorola Inc, the facility will manufacture various products of Motorola, and begin with a production capacity of one million units a month. The company would look at exporting the products to nearby countries and to West Asia and Africa, he said.

A Motorola press release says that the facility will also undertake full-scale production, to support a wide range of Motorola handsets. It will also support production and assembly of network base stations for products across Motorola's Networks and Enterprise portfolio. Apart from mobile handsets, Motorola plans to produce set-top boxes and network equipment at the Chennai plant.

Later, Mr Reed said the company hoped to reach an investment of $100 million within a year. The plant would make mobile handsets for both GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) and CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) technologies.

He said that Motorola's share of the mobile handset market in India had grown from "low single digits" to "low double digits" in the last few months and he was confident that the share would increase.

About 40 per cent of software in Motorola mobile handsets globally was developed in India, said Ms Padmasree Warrior, Executive Vice-President, Chief Technology Officer, Motorola.

The facility will supplement the presence of its six research and development centres in India, including Motorola Labs, Core Networks Division, Embedded communications Computing and Global Software Group. These are run by about 3,000 engineers, the release says.

Design centre

The new facility will manufacture handsets to cater to the country's rural and urban markets, said Mr Firdose Vandrevala, Chairman, Motorola India. The company has been in India for over a decade doing software and research and development for the company's operations globally. The design centre in the country continues to develop a wide range of Motorola products, and this will only increase in future, he said.

A Tamil Nadu Government press release said that the Tamil Nadu Industries Secretary, Mr Shaktikanta Das, signed the agreement with Mr Vandrevala and Mr Reed, in the presence of the Chief Minister, Mr M. Karunanidhi.

More Stories on : Telecommunications | New Projects | Tamil Nadu

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