Post the merger, Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) consolidated its leadership
position in the market in the very first year and bagged considerable deals. The
company also led in environment-friendly initiatives. NSN rocorded revenue of Rs
7,200 crore in its first year of operation.
It bagged a number of big contracts; the prominent among those being the Rs
3,600 crore deal with Bharti Airtel for national long distance and international
long distance networks. The deal with Bharti Airtel is believed to be the
largest next-generation network deal in the country for 1.8 mn subscriber lines
for national long distance and international long distance networks. The deal
ensured that NSN is now a leading supplier of fixed line equipment to Airtel.
Another prominent contract for NSN was the Rs 2,000 crore GSM network
expansion contract from Idea Cellular, making it a leading equipment vendor of
the company. This was NSN's first contract with Idea.
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NSN 3 |
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The company also bagged a Rs 300 crore contract from Aircel to build and
operate a greenfield GSM network in Kolkata, a Rs 600 crore deal with Idea
Cellular for a greenfield managed services network rollout. NSN also won a
pan-India contract from Bharti Airtel for deployment of a single interactive
voice response (IVR) platform across all its twenty-three circles. The company
also got a major contract from Idea Cellular to deploy and integrate a device
management solution in Idea's various circles in the country.
According to a V&D estimates, NSN is also a leading equipment vendor for
Vodafone. About 85-90% of Vodafone's equipment purchase, including managed
services, is from NSN.
Last year, NSN developed the village connection solution for rural areas.
Based on the GSM technology, the solution provides switching and transmission
for calls within and among villages. This initiative marks NSN's entry into the
rural connectivity segment.
The company would be investing around Rs 400 crore in its India operations.
The investment will include setting up a proposed telecommunication equipment
manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu for wireless network equipment, new offices
across various cities, additional development of an existing R&D center, and
expanding the global networks solution center. In a major management
reshuffle, Michael Kuehner took over from Ashish Chowdhary as head of India and
Nepal sub-division. Management reshuffle has reflected in top line growth.
The year also saw NSN focusing on environmentally sustainable solutions. The
company entered into a global collaboration with ACME Tele Power to provide
energy efficient cell site solutions to telecom operators.
We are looking at reducing the TCO for
mobile networks, to be more pervasive
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head of India and Nepal sub region, Nokia Siemens Networks
Michael Kuehner
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Address: 7th Floor, Tower A, DLF Cybercity Phase — III, Gurgaon-122002,
Haryana, India
Tel: +91-124-4504000
Fax: +91-124-4504999
Website:
www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com |
Highlights
- Bagged a Rs 3,600
crore deal from Bharti Airtel and a Rs 2,000 crore deal from Idea
Cellular
- Increased focus on
environmentally sustainable solutions
- Aims to invest Rs 400
crore in the Indian operations
- Developed the village
connection solution for the rural segment
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How has Nokia Siemens performed in its
first year of existence?
Nokia Siemens Networks was formed on April 1, 2007, with the merger of
Nokia Networks and Siemens Carrier Infrastructure business globally. The new
local entity was a perfect marriage in terms of product portfolio and market
share and started operations as the largest integrated communications
equipment vendor in the country.
What were your main achievements in FY
'2007-08?
There were three key focus areas for us in our first year of operations
post the merger. The first focus area was to grow the business over the
previous year which is a massive challenge post the merger, and we did that
successfully. We also managed to establish confidence in our customers for
the newly formed entity, and all the new business we won last year is a
testament to that confidence.
Our next focus area was to invest $100 mn
over three years in our local operations to scale up our business to address
new market opportunities.
What were the trends in the new
technologies arena last year? And are likely to become popular this year?
In India, the wireless technologies being evaluated are WCDMA/HSPA,
CDMA-EVDO, WiMax and Wi-Fi mesh. All these technologies promise very high
bandwidth speeds, enabling applications such as video streaming, VoD,
distance learning, and music downloads among others. Operators are opting
for different technologies on the basis of their business models, strategies
and consumer target segments. For example, an ISP operator might opt for
WiMax or Wireless Mesh to provide last mile broadband access in certain
cities/areas with high usage or potential where it doesn't have operations,
or an existing operator may deploy WiMax in a campus/metro environment like
a business district.
What are your plans for the current
financial year?
We are looking at reducing the total cost of ownership for mobile
networks to be more pervasive and for mobile services to be more affordable.
At the urban level, we are helping reduce the
overall TCO by improving spectral efficiency (we all know how precious
spectrum is in India) and providing a host of services including managed
services. The solution features for spectral efficiency are adaptive multi
rate, dynamic frequency channel allocation, and single antenna interference
cancellation among others. With these an operator can increase the site
configuration and plan less capacity sites.
Energy efficient solution is one of your
thrust areas. What are the developments on this front?
An energy efficient solution is our focus area since mobile base station
sites consume the most energy in telecommunications networks. Our base
stations are the most energy efficient in the industry, and we have
witnessed continuous improvements.
We would be focusing on environmentally
sustainable solutions. We have introduced an environmentally sustainable
business (ESB) program, which allows us to work closely with customers to
evaluate the performance of the installed equipment, and implement the most
environmentally sustainable solutions in the future. |
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