Flextronics plans new unit

Flextronics, an electronics manufacturing services company today announced its plans of expanding its manufacturing base in India.

As part of its expansion plans, capacity addition will be undertaken at the company's, existing plant in Bangalore. The company is also exploring the possibility of setting up a greenfield manufacturing facility in either Chennai or Pondicherry.

"We are in the process of studying the modalities of setting up the facility in either Chennai or Pondicherry and an announcement will be made in two weeks" said Vijayan Chennasamy, vice president Flextronics Technologies after meeting communications and IT minister Dayanidhi Maran.

The capacity addition that the company will undertake in India will be for telecom equipment and consumer products. The company is an original equipment manufacturer for telecom companies like Nortel and Nokia.

The company started its manufacturing unit of telecom equipment in Bangalore ten years ago and the unit employs 600 people.

"The expansion would take the company's headcount in India to 2,000 in the next 18 months," Chennasamy said.

Apart from the 600 people in manufacturing, another Flextronics subsidiary employs 2,400 people for software development in India.

The software business that the company has in India came through the acquisition of 55 per cent stake held by Rupert Murdoch-owned DirecTV in Hughes Software Systems last year.