India Flextronics telecom hub competence centre

Flextronics, the $14 billion global major in Electronic Manufacturing Services, has announced that it will make India a global competence centre for telecom software development.

Michael Marks, CEO, Flextronics, told reporters in Bangalore: "The kind of software competency in India is awesome. We should have tapped this potential much earlier. To make up for the lost time, we are acquiring specialised niche companies in India who can augment our software capabilities globally."

The corporation recently acquired 55 per cent in Hughes Software in India and is close to buying a couple of other firms. Said Marks: "We are committed to expanding our design services into every product area where we have a manufacturing presence and we will acquire skill sets necessary for this expansion."

The company recently bagged a $2 billion order from Nortel Networks to manufacture base stations for its global requirements and with this order, Flextronics will manufacture nearly 60 per cent of Nortel's requirements over a four-year period.

Flextronics' decision to go after telecom software companies makes sense for it as the combination of products and services produced by Flextronics and telecom software companies' expertise provides a complete outsourcing solution to telecom original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).

This convergence of hardware and software expertise will open up significant opportunities to cross-sell respective products and services to a complimentary telecom customer base.

In addition to this expansion in software capabilities in India, Flextronics is also ramping up its manufacturing activities here.

The company, which has a unit in Bangalore manufacturing products which go into a range of electronic gadgets, during the last year had a top line of $10 million and is expected to close the current year at close to $40 million. "We intend to double this by next year," said Marks.

Parallely, the company is also attempting to step up its hardware design activities in India. "Hardware manufacturing and design is great in China. The infrastructure is impeccable and there are a whole lot of supplier clusters around a core manufacturing unit. This is difficult in India. But we are giving it a shot this year and lets see how it shapes up," Marks added.