The company will hire 100-150 people initially and this will be later raised to around 200-250 in the next 18 months. The company expects to rake in over 15 per cent of its revenues from the new facility.

"India is the second largest wireless market in the world and setting up a base here will help us cater to the needs of this market. The facility will also help us to target neighbouring countries with our sales and support services," Vincent Kadarl, chief technology officer, said.

He, however, did not reveal the investments earmarked for the facility but stated that the company is expecting earnings from equities.

This would be "significant" and would be equal to that of its tier-I operations across the world, he added. The R&D centre would provide services to clients across the globe, including countries such as Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Thailand.

Rajive Chandra, regional cirector (ASEAN and India) of airwide, said the company had posted a revenue of $40 million in 2005 and expects this to increase by 10 to 15 per cent this year.

The $40-million company, which has operations in 46 countries and alliances with 70 operators across the globe, is also planning to enter into similar tie-ups in the country.

The company's products are already subscribed by Airtel, Hutch, Aircel, Idea, VSNL [Get Quote] and Reliance [Get Quote] and airwide is looking at providing solutions for the expansion plans of these companies.

airwide's solutions helps operators to enhance users' experience and increase revenues and profits from mobile messaging.

The products include air'n'able texts, its short messaging solution, air'n'gine for MMS, airgate, a gateway solution and airguard, a fraud management solution, among others.