Nokia's OEM to set up first manufacturing unit

BANGALORE: Nokia, a world leader in mobile communications, has tied up with its Indian original equipment manufacturer (OEM) to set up a handset manufacturing facility here in the city.
The Mumbai-based OEM would be establishing a 60,000 sq ft complex where some models of its handsets both for the local as well as the global market would be made here.
Recently, a delegation from Nokia had visited this city as well as a few others in the north and had finalised on the IT capital of India.
According to sources, this would be a major win for the entire Indian hardware industry which was lamenting the absence of any world leader setting up full fledged operations in the Indian sub-continent. "Now, with this kind of a manufacturing unit coming up here, a whole new ecosystem would be created which would act as a catalyst for the hardware sector," sources added.
Nokia has emerged a world leader in the communication space with its easy-to-use mobile phones which have been driving the growth of the cellular market in a spectacular way alongwith with its rivals Samsung and Motorola and LG handsets.
Interestingly, Nokia has been outsourcing part of its software development work for its products and handsets to Hughes and Wipro.
Apart from this, Nokia which had taken over a US company which had its development here, also does a small amount of software development for the Finnish giant alongwith two other OEMs, one of which is spearheading the handset manufacturing operations here.
Meanwhile, Nokia India office set up a few years ago was solely for the purpose of marketing of its networking equipment, rather than mobile phones.
It was rumoured earlier that Reliance would be partnering with Nokia to set up handset manufacturing operations but that had not taken off.