Texas Instruments sees immense potential in India

Texas Instruments (TI) today said that it will stay committed to technology innovation in India and helping customers take advantage of the growing opportunities in wireless communication and entertainment.

Richard K Templeton, president and CEO, Texas Instruments, on a visit to Bangalore said: "The enormous consumer population here, combined with the intellectual capacity available in this country, will impact markets all over the globe for years to come. All of us at TI recognise India not only as a strong and growing market for semiconductors, but also as a place where new ideas are helping shape the direction of technology."

He added that with its wealth of development expertise and a huge growing market, India is well positioned to be a leading player in this new era of communication and entertainment.

Speaking on the plans for India, he said: "Our India focus is clear "" continued innovation in the development of complex semiconductor solutions, coupled with addressing the India market for semiconductor products. With increased electronic product design and manufacturing activities in India, we see significant market opportunities for TI to add value to our customers."

Substantiating this, he said that the Indian market holds high promise in the communication segment for Texas Instruments, given that there will be around 250 million telephone subscribers by 2007. The entertainment industry is expected to be around $10 billion.

"Both are market opportunities for TI in India. We are in exploratory talks with Bollywood to digitise movie content which will bring about a sea change in how a movie is seen and distributed. Besides this, the cost of a mobile phone is dropping dramatically and with our single chip mobile phone, it is highly likely that we will soon have a $40 handset by the second quarter of the current calendar year," added Biswadip Mitra, MD, Texas Instruments, India.

Templeton discussed how the emerging scenario in economies like India and China are contributing strongly to the global semiconductor market.

The electronic equipment market in India stands at $28 billion today and is expected to grow to $363 billion by 2015. "This presents a huge opportunity of about $36 billion for semiconductors," he said.

According to Templeton, 800 million mobile phones were sold globally last year, which was four times more than PC sales. "The world of PC has moved on and it no longer drives the technology. Clearly, mobile phones will drive the semiconductor market and the next biggest challenge is to bring live TV onto the handhelds," he said.