Finnish mobile handsets and electronic equipment maker Elcoteq on Monday opened its factory in Bangalore and said it will invest up to $100 million and hire 1,000 people by 2006 for the unit.
Elcoteq, which makes phones and devices for global telecom brands like Nokia, Siemens and Samsung, is the first multinational telecom firm to set up a manufacturing unit in India, one of the world's fastest growing markets.
"We are investing between $50 million to $100 million and will have about 1,000 people when the unit is fully operational next year," Elcotel president and CEO Jouni Hartikainen told reporters.
The factory has a capacity to produce 10 million handsets every year, he said, adding Elcoteq plans to sell 80 per cent of the handsets produced here in the domestic market.
Hartikainen said Elcoteq would eventually use India as a base to export phones and base station for Pakistan, Bangladesh, West Asia and East Africa.
He said the firm would work on design, fabrication and packaging of mobile units and other products in the telecom space, while it was already "outsourcing design and software work to several IT firms in India".
