Navteq to expand workforce at India's production unit

Digital map maker Navteq is planning to expand its workforce at its production centre in the country by about 50 per cent, besides looking at enhancing its services.

The US-based firm, which was acquired by Nokia last year for $8 billion, said it is planning to hire 200 people at its production centre in India in the next three-four months.

"Our global production centre in Mumbai is the first centre in Asia-Pacific (region) and the largest of its kind for Navteq. We currently have a workforce of over 400 workers in the centre and we expect to employ 600 when fully staffed," Navteq Vice-President Digital Mapping Operations Greg Edwards told reporters here.

He said Navteq is working with several mobile phone firms to provide digital map, traffic and location data for navigation.

"We find wireless sector, which includes mobile phone as a potential area for our growth considering that in India, 10 million mobile users are added every month and it is the second largest market in the world," Edwards added.

Navteq's coverage is spread over 628,000 km across India in 84 major cities with over 1.4 million points of interest.

"Our effort now is to penetrate deeper into these cities and also expand our coverage. We are currently working with the major companies, including Samsung, Sony and LG among others," he said.