Wireless

December 27, 2004
Hyundai India Telecom to set-up manufacturing, R&D hub in India

NEW DELHI -- Hyundai India Telecom Ltd. (HIT Ltd) recently announced the receipt of the license from Hyundai Korea Corp. to set up a manufacturing plant and R&D hub in India. HIT plans an investment of US $50 million over next five years.

HIT will manufacture the entire range of its high-end mobile phone handsets for GSM and CDMA platforms. About 50 percent of the output will be earmarked for the local market, while the other 50 percent will cater to the international markets, primarily in the Asian and SAARC belts. A global R&D unit is also being planned to create cutting-edge software design and user-friendly applications that will address the needs of a wide spectrum of mobile handset users particularly in the region.

The production facility will have five assembly lines for the CDMA and GSM mobile phones with a daily production capacity of 4,000 handsets. In the very first year, the production capacity would be upto 1.2 million handsets per annum with the provision to ramp-up and triple the capacity based on the demand from the local market.

In addition to the global R&D support and transfer of technology, HIT plans to invest continuously around 3-5 percent of its turnover toward the R&D of both GSM and CDMA handsets, especially for the nuances in the Asian markets. It will initially offer high-end GSM and CDMA mobile phones to customers and intends to focus on PDAs and smartphone as well. It also plans to introduce the latest range of other synergistic 3G mobile products.

HIT is in the advanced stages of discussion with leading software companies of India to be part of the global manufacturing and R&D hub as software technology joint venture partners in India. As technology partners, the software companies will be responsible for developing indigenous and unique mobile-based applications and software for the handsets manufacturing in India.

Vijay R. Singh, VC and MD, HIT Ltd., said: "The mobile phone segment is gaining prominence in India, with mobile penetration per household increasing at an exponential pace. The demand for cutting-edge mobile handsets that are user-friendly and economical is growing and there is a huge replacement market for color, camera and high-end PC-PDA phones. Thus, we strongly believe that with a well-known brand like ours, which has developed superior technology, product quality and manufacturing excellence over the years, we can well meet the demand, and create newer segments and markets by setting up a manufacturing and R&D hub in India. Further, this would also help us feed supply through exports to the highly potential markets in the SAARC and Asian regions, and other international markets."