No other telecom equipment company had a more eventful year than Nokia. The Finnish vendor registered a huge 140 percent growth in its business in India, which catapulted its India operations to become Nokia's fifth largest market in the world. In the year prior to that, the India operations had ranked sixth; and in 2002 and 2001, ninth and tenth, respectively. This growth came from both the mobile handset and infrastructure segments.

Even though there was lot more competition in both the mobile phone segment last year, Nokia remained the undisputed leader. Besides its wide range of phones and the widespread business infrastructure that it has in India, its deepening commitment to the Indian market aided its 100 percent growth in the mobile phone business. Nokia's growing faith and commitment in India was reflected not just in its India-centric product strategy and marketing campaigns but also in its plan to invest in manufacturing in handset as well as infrastructure space.

In many ways, Nokia's success in India is a manifestation of the success of telecom here. The vendor was a key beneficiary of the tremendous growth that the mobile subscriber base witnessed past year and the huge investments that operators made in the expanding their networks.

India Heads: Sanjeev Sharma, managing director / Ashish Chowdhary, country head, India & South Asia (Networks) Area of Operation: Mobile phones, Mobile infrastructure, Enterprise solutions Address: Nokia India, 5F, Cybergreen, Building No. A & B, Cybercity, DLF - II, Gurgaon, Haryana 122002  Tel: +91 124 5199000 Fax: +91 124 5199100 Website: www.nokia.co.in  V&D estimates CyberMedia Research Highlights • India emerged as the fifth largest market for Nokia globally • Nokia India's revenue from GSM handsets in FY 2004–05 was Rs 4,600 crore • Infrastructure business contributed Rs 2,771 crore  • Nokia announced plans to set up mobile handsets and infrastructure equipment manufacturing plant in India

In the GSM handsets space, Nokia has been a clear market leader in India for the last several years in a row. As per VOICE&DATA estimates, Nokia India sold GSM phones worth around Rs 4,600 crore in FY 2004–05. The vendor owns up to 62 percent of the GSM handset market in India. It launched more handsets than any of the other vendor, something that further fortified its leadership.

Nokia clinched a number of big deals in the mobile infrastructure space, which helped it end the year at number two in the segment. Its revenue from network infrastructure business was Rs 2,771 crore, according V&D estimates. Major business for Nokia in mobile infrastructure came from BSNL and Bharti. BSNL ordered equipment worth $246 million in October 2004. This contract included supply of both core and GSM/EDGE/GPRS radio network equipment, including base station subsystems, switching subsystems, intelligent network, GPRS core network, SMS system, multimedia messaging center expansion, and Nokia Download Solution. Nokia 5140 handsets were also included in the deal.

Earlier in August, the vendor had got orders for four million lines from BSNL for its expansion in north India. More significant was its $275 million deal (spread over three years) with Bharti. Announced in May 2004, the deal included full management of Bharti's network by Nokia, besides the supply of both core and GSM/EDGE radio network equipment to build or upgrade Bharti's networks. In June, Nokia bagged a major order from Hutchison India to become the largest network vendor for the operator in the country.

There is no doubt that India has been an unexpected success story for Nokia. If the current momentum of growth the Indian telecom services market continues, Nokia's India story would run through the coming years as well. On the other hand, the vendor's committment and closeness to the Indian market is also likely to grow stronger. And it should not come as a surprise if a few years down the line India emerges as Nokia's top market.

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