Finland-telecom giant Nokia plans to increase their localization in India from 20 percent to 40-45 percent in next three years, announced the company at an event that marked to celebrate the completion of 20 lakh production milestone of the Nokia Network, its Chennai factory. The company is also in discussion with their global vendors to set up facilities in the country.
“The facilities would help the company in improving the supply chain management. The company is looking at localizing the mechanics side of the business,” Karl Kirschenhofer, vice president, manufacturing operations, Global Operations - MO, Nokia Network said. Currently, most of its vendors are present in China.
Setting up facilities in India will enable the company to bring down the cost of production. "The long-term purpose should be to bring more of the supply chain in India, mentor and train entrepreneurs so that the supply chain gets more and more indigenized and the cost of production goes down," added Amitabh Kant, secretary, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) present at the event.
The company has not yet decided any place to set up its manufacturing facilities.
Being a company that currently focuses on standardization of 5G network, which the firm expects to roll out by 2018, it has many new technology products to manufacture. With an employee base of 1,200, Nokia Network, Chennai, the Indian arm of Nokia Corporation, it is one of the largest manufacturing units in the sector of Indian telecommunications. Chennai centre is a strategic hub for Nokia global operations.
Nokia Networks, established for the purpose of manufacturing telecom equipment manufacture has invested Rs. 500 crore so far for the purpose. It is concentrating more on upgrading manufacturing and testing facilities as the technology progressed from 2G, 3G, and now with the LTE 4G, and the 5G. “More critical components like Printed Circuit boards, are still being imported, according to Karl Kirschenhofer.
Nokia will test 5G with NTT DOCOMO in Japan. The factories for 5G will take another year to materialize, but the company has already laid a road map for 5G.
Make in India campaign of India is already improving the ease of doing business in India and is introducing one point payment for entrepreneurs to do business through Ebiz platform. “The Government has already integrated 14 services to Ebiz platform and plans to connect another 26 services and six states to Ebiz by the end of the year,” said Kant. With the launch of Make in India, kant said that the foreign investment to the country has increased 56 percent, in sectors like Defence, manufacturing and services.
He also said that the Government plans to rank those states that makes it easy for the entrepreneurs to do business by June or July 2015.
