Huawei India aims $2 bn contract sales in 2008

Riding on the telecom growth wave, Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei expects to clock contract sales of $2 billion this year in India.

"We are looking at $2 billion worth contract sales from India this year from last year's $700 million given the growth the sector (telecom) has seen," Huawei India Deputy Director (Marketing) Sethumadhavan Srinivasan told PTI.

With the 3G services scheduled to be launched soon, this growth will only continue, he added.

Indian telecom operators added 10.42 million mobile phone subscribers in October this year, taking the number of cellphone users to over 325 million, according to the data released by regulator Trai.

The company is working closely with "some of the large operators" to help them roll out their 3G services.

"MTNL has recently launched its services and with the auction scheduled for next year, we are working closely with some of the large operators to prepare them for roll out of 3G services," he said.

Huawei is working with leading Indian telcos like Reliance, Tata, BSNL and MTNL in strategic areas of mobile/IP and fixed networks, GSM/CDMA, broadband, optical, IP/MPLS and terminal devices/CPEs.

On the impact of the global slowdown, Srinivasan said the growth prospects for India still look upbeat. "Even though the ARPU (Average Revenue per User) in India is low, the sector is still witnessing strong growth and we expect this to continue," he said.

India contributes about eight per cent to the global revenues. The company's global reveues stood at $16 billion in 2007 and expects to touch $23 billion by the year end.