Ericsson sets up R&D centre in Chennai

Ericsson announced the setting up of its first research and development facility and global service delivery centre (GSDC) in India, in Chennai.

Addressing a press conference, Mats Granryd, managing director, Ericsson India, said that the company chose Chennai to set up its first research and development centre and GSDC in the country because the city had a better supply of talent.

The research and development facility will focus on developing value-added applications for the pre-paid and multimedia segments. The research and development of the global prepaid segment, currently in Sweden, would be partially transferred to the Chennai centre, said Granryd.

"The GSDC will focus on providing service integration capabilities for complex telecom projects to our global customers," he added.

Granryd declined to disclose the details about the investment in setting up the research and development centre and GSDC. However, he said that Ericsson invests about $100 million (about Rs 450 crore) in India annually for all its activities.

Granryd said that the company has developed four building blocks. The first was developed when the company set up its manufacturing unit for radio base stations in Jaipur in March 2005. The GSDC and the research and development centre in Chennai would be its second and third building blocks, respectively.

Ericsson has also invested in human capital in terms of recruiting locally. Almost 98 per cent of its employee base are local people. The company has about 1,500 employees in 22 different locations.

The research and development centre and GSDC, located at Alwarpet in Chennai, would employ 100 engineers by the year-end. Granryd said that it would ramp up the employee base to 500 in the next few years.