BANGALORE: Motorola Inc plans to increase its R&D investment in India by 10-15 per cent year-on-year, Padmasree Warrior, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, said here on Friday.

"As we grow our market share, we want to localise our manufacturing and R&D. There are a lot of opportunities for talent as well as market in India,'' Ms. Warrior told reporters during an official visit here.

Motorola has six R&D centres in Bangalore and Hyderabad employing over 2800 engineers and its investment in technology has grown from $50 million in 2002 to $85 million in 2005. Almost 40 per cent of the software used in Motorola phones worldwide is designed in India.

According to Mohan Kumar, Vice President and General Manager, Embedded Products and Systems Division, Motorola would raise its headcount in India to 4,000 from the current level of about 3,500 by the end of the year.

Ms. warrior said India needed to move to more advanced technology and skip intermediate steps such as 3G by leapfrogging to 4G or wireless broadband.

After launching the sub-$40 handsets in India in April 2005, Motorola was now planning to introduce $30 handsets as well. She said the Q Phone that was launched by the company in the U.S. on June 1 would be available in India shortly.

"We are working with a couple of operators for the customisation of the Q Phone for the Indian market,'' she said.

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