India needs better infrastructure like transport service, health care ... even restaurants

How is Nokia's Chennai facility contributing to its global business?

We have crossed cumulative production of 200 mn handsets from the Chennai
facility. Now we are building third phase of this plant to increase our
production capability. It will be ready by the end of this December. We are
involving people from the Chennai facility to assist production at our recent
plant established in Romania. There is a lot of evolution and innovation that
keeps coming from the Chennai facility and we are sharing it with our other
factories. As far as contribution in terms of volume is concerned, I can only
say that we have 1 bn customers out of which 200 mn mobile phones come from
Chennai.

How many more handsets do you plan to produce from the Chennai facility
this year?

The number of units produced in this plant will be purely based on the
market that the Chennai facility caters to, comprising 50 countries as of now.
These include domestic market, Africa,

David Cheung vice president, volume operations, Nokia

 South east Asia, Middle East Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

What are the things that need to be done to boost telecom manufacturing in
India?

First the infrastructure needs to keep pace with the development. People who
will benefit from manufacturing will demand for better infrastructure. The
opportunity coming from manufacturing will attract the middle class. You need to
have better infrastructure like transport service, health care and even
restaurants. I have been coming to Chennai since the last three years. The road
condition has improved but not the means of transport. We need to connect remote
villages with better and rapid means of public transport. There are coaches
available from the company, but I think relying on company coaches is not
enough.

What has been the government's response on this issue?

The government is working but it needs to be done with rapid pace. I think
beside government, entrepreneurs can come forward and develop things on a
public-private partnership basis.

What kind of a kit does Nokia use to manufacture its handsets in the
Chennai facility?

Nokia is not in the business of making raw components. We have six of our
components vendors in Nokia SEZ and the seventh one, Aspocomp ,will be joining
us in 2009. Rest of the components are imported as not all are locally made.

Prasoon Srivastava

prasoons@cybermedia.co.in