The Hindu Business Line : LG to expand Bangalore facility

Mr Mukesh Ambani, Chairman, Reliance Industries Ltd (right), with Mr Mun Hwa Park, President & CEO LG Electronics, Telecommunication Equipment & Handset Company, at a function in Mumbai on Friday to commemorate the shipment of 5 million handsets to Reliance Infocomm. - - Paul Noronha

Mumbai , March 5

LG Electronics plans to invest Rs 25 crore to expand its marketing network in India.

In addition, the company proposes to utilise the India development centre located at Bangalore to develop software for its mobile devices including CDMA handsets.

Mr Mun Hwa Park, President and CEO, Telecommunication Equipment & Handset Company, told newspersons:

"More than hardware, we are looking at using the software talent available here to work on (software) development for our mobile products."

He added: "We plan to expand our facility in Bangalore and increase the number of software engineers at the LG centre to 1,000 in three years. Currently we have 300 people working now."

The centre will work on technologies including UMTS and next generation GSM technology.

According to Mr Park, India is an important market for LG, with the company aiming for the leadership position in the CDMA space.

It has completed shipping of five million CDMA handsets to Reliance Infocomm in less than a year of operations since its launch last May.

"In less than a year, LG has supplied five million handsets to us. It is a world record," said Mr Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance group.

Reliance has 6.3 million post-paid subscribers and the number of users in pre-paid category ranges between 3.5 lakh to four lakh subscribers.

"We are satisfied with the speed at which the pre-paid customers are coming. Pre-paid is sustainable and long term," said Mr Ambani, adding that Reliance would continue to look at various vendors like Nokia, LG, Samsung and Motorola for supply of handsets.

Mr Park said that Reliance was the second largest buyer of CDMA-based mobile handsets from LG, after Verizon, US.

Currently, there are 14 LG engineers working with Reliance Infocomm for CDMA handsets.

On possibility of manufacturing CDMA phones in India, he said: "We are evaluating all options. It all depends upon Government policies and regulations. We are looking at the possibility of manufacturing CDMA phones in collaboration with Reliance and studying its feasibility now."

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