Nokia announced that it has made 125 million mobile handsets in India over the last two years. That by all means is a huge number. But what the Finnish major failed to mention was that during 2007 it made 100 million handsets at its plant at Sriperumbudur, near Chennai. That's because in 2007 Nokia had announced it made 25 million handsets in India during 2006.
That's already showing in the results. Earnings from the Indian operations have grown from Euro 2.71 billion (Rs 15,803 crore) to Euro 3.9 billion (Rs 24,968.7 crore). That's a cool 43.91% rise in revenues in Euro terms in just a year. I guess that's easy when you control more than half of the worlds fastest growing mobile market. After all, India has been adding over 8 million new mobile subscribers a month.
To do that it needs a lot more people. During 2007 the headcount at Nokia India has gone up from 3,800 to 8,000. By this time next year Nokia plans to have 13,000 employees in India. That's literally trebling the workforce in two years! All this needs additional investment, which will rise from the $ 210 million already committed to $ 285 million over the next year.
With 100 million handsets out of India, it is head and shoulders above the rest of the handset makers--Elcoteq, Samsung, LG, Motorola and Flextronics. Of these, the only one can that can match Nokia is Flextronics that has a huge facility with two plants down the road from the Nokia plant.
No wonder, Nokia is by far the biggest multinational in India. It remains to be seen how it will leverage Ovi (means "door" in Finnish) in India. That's when it will have to fight the entrenched service providers. It will be an interesting play. Stay tuned.
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