After nearly a year of total silence, Finnish giant Nokia came up with a Strategy Sharing Session (SSS) in Chennai. The idea was to meet up with the new management team, plus a look at the manufacturing facility. The new team comprises D Shivakumar, VP & MD, Nokia India; Devinder Kishore, director marketing; Sunil Dutt, director sales; GK Chakrapani, country GM, enterprise solutions; Vineet Taneja, director multimedia; Vipul Sabharwal, director channel & retail.
So here's a quick update on what happened to Nokia India during 2006.
One, India emerged as Nokia's third biggest after China and the US as opposed to being the fourth largest market in 2005. At Euro 2.71 billion, India accounts for 6.6% of Nokia's global revenues of Euro 41.12 billion. Two, the Nokia manufacturing facility at Sriperumbudur near Chennai made 25 million handsets during 2006. Roughly 30% of these phones were exported to nine South-East Asian and eight Middle East and African countries. 2007 should see half the production being exported. Going by a quick back of the envelope calculation, the plant can manufacture close to 75 million handsets a year. It remains to be seen how quickly it ramps up to that level.
Three, the man who set up the manufacturing facility--Jukka Lehtela a Nokia hand for 23 years has gone back to Finland. He has been replaced by Sachin Saxena. The floor space of the plant is being increased from the current 30,000 square metres to 53,000 square metres.
So what handsets do they make here? Well, the big mystery is over for now. Currently, the Indian plant cranks out 10 largely low-end models. This includes the 1100i/1110/1110i/1112/1600/2310/2600/2610/2626/6030.
With over 3,800 employees at the plant, Nokia provides jobs to around 6,000 people in India. Ahead of India are obviously Finland, the United States and China. Around 70% of the 3,800 employees at the Chennai plant are women.
Eight vendors are setting up component plants within the Nokia complex. Work is currently on at the facilities of Perlos, Salcomp and Jabil Circuit. All the eight should be up and running by early 2008.
Globally Nokia has classified its phones under four categories. The Explore range is the N Series that lets users discover a whole new set of uses. The Live category is for those whom a mobile phone is a style statement. Then the Active series (largely E Series) which allow the users to increase their productivity. Last is the Connect series. These have simple features and are usually marked for the first time users.
1 comment:
I think Nokia is doing very well in India and in the years to come they will get more and more serious about this market. In India more often than not a mobile phone means Nokia but it is no so in the developed world where it has much stronger competition from rivals like Sony Erricson, Researcn in Motion (the makers of Blackberries) and Treo.
So it hardly surprising to see them taking the Indian market -with its future growth potential - so seriously.
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