Nokia India R&D centre to hire 2,500 by 2016

BANGALORE: Nokia Networks’ research and development centre in India is on a hiring spree with the company planning to add 1,000 people this year and another 1,500 in the next two years.

India has emerged as the company’s biggest growth driver in terms of business as well as product development. Nokia has become the biggest vendor in mobile broadband infrastructure business with a string of deals with Vodafone, Airtel, Reliancegeo in the first half of 2014.

With more than 10,000 people, India is now the largest resource base of Nokia in the world and Nokia networks’ technology centre in the country is its largest R&D facility with 3,000 people, which is set to touch 5,000 by 2017.

“4G is at a very early stage and people are talking about 5G. In order to support this kind of expansion we need to strengthen our R&D capability,” said Saumitra Sana, head of technology centre, Nokia Networks, India.

“We will see a lot of work, growth and investment in network security, big data and telecom cloud,” Sana said.

India powers the product innovation efforts of Nokia as the technology centre here makes about 125 invention disclosures of which 15-25 get filed for patent. “We want to push this number up,” Sana said. Even in the private space, companies including Tata Power are selling their non-core investments to reduce the debt burden that stands close to ₹38,618 crore. “The company will re-look at its non-core investments from time to time to see whether they can be rationalised,” Tata Power chairman Cyrus Mistry recently said.

NTPC’S portfolio of hydro power assets include four projects that are in advance stages of implementation — The 800-MW Koldam Hydro Project in Himachal Pradesh, 520-MW Tapovanvishnugad, 171-MW Lata-tapovan project in Uttrakhand and the 120-MW Rammam-iii project in West Bengal. NHPC has been awarded two big thermal projects in Chhattisgarh and Bihar of 1,320 MW each as joint ventures with the state governments.