International Herald Tribune

India to be world's No. 2 for handsets, Nokia says

2 March, 2006

Nokia, which has opened its first handset factory in India, expects the country to become the second-largest market in the world for cellphone sales by volume by 2010.

The factory in Madras, built at a cost of $150 million, will make handsets and network equipment. Nokia, the world's biggest maker of cellphones, expects to hire 10,000 employees over the next few years, the company said in a statement. "India will be the second-largest mobile handset market globally by 2010 after China," Jorma Ollila, chief executive of Nokia, said. "Nokia is working closely with telecommunications service providers to reduce the cost of ownership and make more affordable and attractive handsets."

Nokia and rivals like Ericsson that make telecom gear are setting up factories in India, where the number of cellphone users is projected to double to 200 million by the end of 2007. Local phone companies are expected to spend as much as $36.7 billion expanding networks in the next three years, according to government estimates. Nokia will export handsets from its India plant to Southeast Asian countries by the second half of 2006, Jukka Lehtela, a director at Nokia's India operations, said.

*******