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Nokia plant in TN
 The Tamil Nadu government and mobile major Nokia signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on April 6 for setting up its first mobile handset manufacturing unit in the country, Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa said in
Chennai.
She told the Assembly that the manufacturing unit would be located at Sriperumbudur SIPCOT Industrial Estate in Tiruvallur district.
Nokia is expected to invest & 150 million in the first stage and an equal investment is in order to set up ancillary units, providing direct employment to 1,200 persons and indirect employment to 6,000 more persons.
The unit would manufacture 2.4 crore mobile phones per annum initially and the handsets would be for sale in the domestic and export markets, she said.
The site where the ancillary unit would be set up would be declared as Special Economic Zone.
Nokia, after inspecting several places in the country, zeroed in on Sriperumbudur, she added.
Lauri Vesalainen, vice-president, operations and logistics, APAC, Nokia, declined to comment on the Chief Minister's statement that 2.4 crore mobile phones would be manufactured here initially. He also declined to comment on whether the site would be declared as a Special Economic Zone.
Sanjeev Sharma, managing director, Nokia, said the team would visit the Sriperumbudur site to get at the land that had been offered. Nokia would take it on lease.
Chennai was the preferred location to set up Nokia's first production facility in the country in view of the availability of skilled manpower and other resources, he added. Sanjeev declined to go into the claims of other cities which Nokia had examined in this connection.
Sanjeev said Nokia had plans to strengthen its R&D facility in the country, particularly to tap the huge market and need of the multi-media industry like in mobile cameras, games and so on.
Regarding the problems posed by the counterfeit market, Sanjeev said Nokia had resorted to a global consumer education campaign on the need for the people to reject counterfeit stuff and go in for genuine Nokia products. There were plans to provide holograms to batteries and also for authentification of codes in this connection.
Nokia announced that it would set up a manufacturing facility for mobile devices in Chennai. The manufacturing unit in Chennai will be Nokia's 10th mobile device production facility globally. Nokia anticipates investing an estimated $ 100-150 million in the India production plant.
"Establishing a new factory in India is an important step in the continuous development of our global manufacturing network. We selected Chennai to be the location for the factory thanks to the availability of skilled labour, friendly business environment, support from the state government, good logistics connections and overall cost-efficiency," said Pekka Ala-Pietila, president,
Nokia.
 Nokia's new facility will come up at Sriperumbudur, 40 km from Chennai, in Tamil Nadu. The construction work at the site of the manufacturing unit will start in April and production is expected to begin in the first half of 2006. Nokia foresees ramping up the factory gradually and the work force reaching approximately 2,000 employees when production is full-scale.
Mobile penetration in Asia-Pacific is expected to be a major contributor to the global mobile subscriber base surpassing the two billion mark in 2006. Therefore, India, which is set at the heart of the region where mobile communications is growing rapidly, was a natural location of choice for the new production facility.
In India, Nokia is the market leader in mobile devices. Nokia maintains sales, marketing, customer care and research and development sites in the country. Nokia was recently recognised as the Brand of the Year by the Confederation of Indian Industry (Cn) as well as the most respected consumer durables company by the BusinessWorld magazine.
Nokia is a world leader in mobile communications, driving the growth and sustainability of the broader mobility industry. Nokia connects people to each other and the information that matters to them with easy-to-use and innovative products like mobile phones, devices and solutions for imaging, games, media and businesses.
Nokia provides equipment, solutions and services for network operators and corporations. For more information, please visit
www.nokia.com.
R Rangaraj
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