ESPOO, Finland-Nokia Corp. announced it will invest up to $150 million to build a new mobile-phone manufacturing plant in Chennai, India. The plant will be Nokia’s 10th in the world.
“Establishing a new factory in India is an important step in the continuous development of our global manufacturing network,” said Pekka Ala-Pietila, Nokia’s president. “We selected Chennai to be the location for the factory thanks to the availability of skilled labor, friendly business environment, support from the state government, good logistics connections and overall cost efficiency.”
Nokia’s move highlights the importance of the Indian market and the Asia-Pacific region in general. With just more than 1 billion people but only around 50 million wireless subscribers, India represents a major source of growth for the wireless industry.
Nokia said its new facility in Chennai will be in the state of Tamil Nadu in the southern part of India. Construction will start this month, and production is expected to begin in the first half of 2006. Nokia expects to employ around 2,000 workers at the plant when production is full scale.
Nokia also recently announced plans to build a phone manufacturing plant in Mexico to target Latin America.
