Finnish equipment maker Nokia Siemens Networks said that it was not in favour of a policy that allows reservation to local manufacturers in India.

Mr Rajeev Suri, Worldwide Chief Executive Officer of Nokia Siemens, told Business Line that it was too late for Indian companies to establish itself in the telecom equipment manufacturing business.

No to reservation

“I wouldn't like to go back to the world of reservation. It is a competitive game and it is too late in the day for Indian manufacturing companies,” Mr Suri said.

He added that although Nokia Siemens has a local manufacturing facility in India and a reservation policy would benefit the company, it would not support such a system.

The NSN chief's comment comes even as the Government is looking to develop a policy to encourage Indian manufacturers. Local companies are pushing for a policy that would make it mandatory for telecom operators to but necessarily buy a certain percentage of equipment from Indian manufacturers.

Mr Suri said that globally, the business case for vendors focussed on single local market is weakening. “Markets like Japan still have a number of vendors that are solely relying only on the Japanese market. I don't think, in the long term, that trend can necessarily play out where you can put all your eggs in one basket

“So, in Japan, for instance, we will be No. 1 after the Motorola acquisition,” he said.

“In the long-term, I think there is space for three strong vendors. You have to spend money for innovation, R&D. Look at 2010, we believe it was a flat market and we have seen Motorola consolidation and we have seen Nortel consolidation,” Mr Suri said.

Motorola buy

On the proposed acquisition of Motorola, Mr Suri said that NSN was hoping to complete the buy in the first quarter. On the suit filed by Huawei accusing Motorola of IPR infringement as a result of the deal with NSN, Mr Suri said that NSN did not want anyone else's technology.

“We don't want anybody's technology. We don't want trade secrets or anything like that,” the Indian born honcho said.

When asked about the interest shown by private equity firms to pick up a stake in the company, Mr Suri said that NSN could use additional capital to drive new ideas.

“I don't want to speculate on timing. Frankly, it is a call for the shareholders to make rather than me. But I continue to think that it is a favourable thing. Although we don't need to raise funds and we would love to have more capital to drive more ideas,” he said.

comment COMMENT NOW