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Ericsson R&D centre in Chennai

Staff Correspondent

Also plans global services delivery centre here

CHENNAI: The Swedish Telecom giant Ericsson on Friday commissioned its research and development facility here, which would focus on developing value-added applications for the pre-paid and multimedia segments of mobile phones. The company will also set up a global services delivery centre here to cater to the needs of its global customers.

Swedish Ambassador to India, Inga Eriksson Fogh, who was here to participate in the inauguration of the centre, said Swedish medium and small telecom companies had invested two million Kroner (Rs 1.1 crore) in the Indian telecom sector and this investment would grow in the future.

Ms. Fogh said the initial investment would support Swedish SMEs in establishing contacts in India for innovative ways to collaborate in IT with special focus on IT development for SMEs, e-health and e-governance.

She said telecom equipment accounted for 40 per cent of total Swedish exports to India. The presence of information technology giants like Infosys, TCS and Wipro would provide impetus for Swedish ICT and IT suppliers to be given the `green signal to invest in India'.

Ms. Fogh said with knowledge-intensive jobs providing the largest market, her country was keen on continued collaboration with India. Sweden, to retain its global technology leadership position, had to enhance its competitive edge and for this India was critical, she added.

Ericsson India Managing Director, Mats Granryd, said the company had 1,500 employees in 22 different locations in India. Ericsson had 40 per cent of the GSM market in India and in the case of wireless it was over 30 per cent. Mr. Granryd said his company planned to invest $100 million in India soon. Ericsson could not be called a foreign company as it was sourcing within the country 98 per cent of materials needed for manufacture.

Inaugurating the Ericsson R&D facility and global services delivery centre, Union Minister for Communication and Information Technology, Dayanidhi Maran, said Ericsson had opened its facility here after just seven months of discussion.

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