Huawei to set up $500m plant in India

[Martian]

Huawei India

Huawei S7 tablet

Huawei Android smartphone

Huawei to set up $500m plant - The Times of India

"Huawei to set up $500m plant
Shalini Singh, TNN, Sep 20, 2010, 01.12am IST

NEW DELHI: Chinese telecom equipment manufacturer Huawei has tipped the telecom equipment security debate strongly in its favor by deciding to set up a local manufacturing base in Chennai with an investment of $500 million. This will be the first large investment in telecom manufacturing since telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran left office as telecom minister in May 2007.

Confirming the development, A Sethuraman, executive director, Huawei India, told TOI that this multi-product facility, which is to be constructed across an area of 30,000 sq ft near Sriperumbudur will become operational before the end of December. According to him, the investment will be staggered over the next 5 years.

Tamil Nadu is often called India's Shenzen after Maran attracted a host of telecom manufacturing investments to the state from 2005 onwards, including Nokia, Ericsson, LG, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Alcatel Lucent, Nortel and others.

Huawei already has an R&D centre in India which is its biggest outside China, employing 2,000 people. Its India operations have been drawing overall investments of $150 million/year over the past decade. According to the company, it has a total employee base of 6,000 people of which 95% are Indians, while creating indirect employment for 20,000 additional people through its partner ecosystem.

Huawei sells equipment in over 100 countries and claims to serve 46 of the world's top 50 telecom operators. Its global turnover in 2009 was $30 billion of which India sales accounted for roughly 7%. Huawei's turnover for 2010 is projected to hit $36 billion, though India failed to generate any significant contracts until just a month ago owing to home ministry fears that Chinese equipment makers were placing malaware and spyware in their equipment. While all foreign telecom equipment orders were practically suspended over these concerns, Chinese firms faced the real threat of an outright ban, despite the fact that most of India's telecom operators already use Chinese equipment.

On August 3, the ToI had reported that Huawei had turned this threat into a huge opportunity by becoming the first firm to concede to the home ministry's demand to share its source codes with them. Apart from its inherent price advantage, this helped Huawei score heavily against its competitors who refuse to share their source codes.

Huawei's decision to manufacture locally will give it a further edge as it is aimed at checkmating not only its big European and US competitors but also removing any shadow boxing opportunities for India's security agencies. With local manufacturing and investments, the government will have greater access to Huawei's manufacturing operations but also much less room for taking refuge in conspiracy theories. This will force the Indian government to now take a clear stand on how it will deal with its security risk perceptions relating to Chinese equipment makers.

"The manufacturing facility will provide a time-to-market advantage to our customers, faster return on investments and future-proofing of technology or removing obsolescence by enabling compatibilities and smoother integration," says Sethuraman."

 

[Ray]

I, for one, have had a rather harrowing time with Chinese products!

They are cheap, but in the overall context, they do not last long.

Maybe I am an exception!

 

[ahmedsid]

For short term use, Chinese Products are well and fine. But Huwaei is not that cheap either, Its only slightly cheaper than its competitors I believe. Do correct me. I would pay slightly more and go for a more lasting product If I can! God Speed

 

[thakur_ritesh]

On August 3, the ToI had reported that Huawei had turned this threat into a huge opportunity by becoming the first firm to concede to the home ministry's demand to share its source codes with them. Apart from its inherent price advantage, this helped Huawei score heavily against its competitors who refuse to share their source codes.

Huawei's decision to manufacture locally will give it a further edge

i am really interested in the above bold part. they comply with the MoHA guidelines and they are not going to be importing stuff from china but manufacture stuff locally and there indeed is going to be some high tech manufacturing happening here which will further force the competition to do the same if they are not already which is what india really wants.

I, for one, have had a rather harrowing time with Chinese products!

They are cheap, but in the overall context, they do not last long.

Maybe I am an exception!

atleast i shy away from MiC till the time the product being bought is a certain brand that i am looking for and is MiC, other than that india is a very price sensitive market and anything being sold slightly cheaper has a market for it sans the quality. people have limited budget to spend and then they want to buy as much, so no wonder MiC has a huge market in india.

 

[prototype]

the only Chinese product I use is a modem from ZTE,and i am not that happy with its perfomance

 

[SHASH2K2]

I, for one, have had a rather harrowing time with Chinese products!

They are cheap, but in the overall context, they do not last long.

Maybe I am an exception!

You are not an exception . Infact you are among majority people who feel that Chinese or China made products are cheap but very poor in quality. Recently I went to assemble a new PC and I made sue to major components I installed was Made in China. I paid more price due to this but I am at peace that I bought something better than made in China. Hope thay have batter Quality control in their Indian Unit.

 

[badguy2000]

You are not an exception . Infact you are among majority people who feel that Chinese or China made products are cheap but very poor in quality. Recently I went to assemble a new PC and I made sue to major components I installed was Made in China. I paid more price due to this but I am at peace that I bought something better than made in China. Hope thay have batter Quality control in their Indian Unit.

every peny has it worth.

 

[SHASH2K2]

every peny has it worth.

Sure . Every penny has its worth and Its my wish to spend it on stuffs that I want. I donot want to spend it on Made in china products due to 2 reasons.
1st . I donot want to buy an inferior product which is cheap. I would go for Better product even though its costly.
2nd. Every Item made is china bought by Indian strengthen its biggest enemy . SO being a true Indian I boycott Chinese product.I would expect all Indians to boycott Made in China products . On one hand China want to do business in India and its hugely in their favour and using other hand in back its supplying Pakistan with all kind of weapons. Irony is that they are using our own Money to destroy us. SO as a patriotic Indian I Boycott China made product and will ask others to do so.
WTO can do nothing about it .

 

[roma]

reliability of prc products - depends - low end should be ok - higher end just forget it

but really im more concerned about which prc personnel are gonna be staff at huawei and what theyre gonna do in their " spare time " or should i say " spy time " ??

will they be learning from indian brain how to improve their r&d - will they be monitoring the indian educational system from within ?

basically the concern is their activities beyond the company even done within the confines of the company builldings ....and the amount of capital invested shouldnt be allowed to impree anyone in india - cos dragon will do ANYTHING to further their aims including splure tons of money - not a problem cos they think long term and BIG dividends

 

[Yusuf]

How come they didnt invest in their dear friends country???

 

[LETHALFORCE]

reliability of prc products - depends - low end should be ok - higher end just forget it

but really im more concerned about which prc personnel are gonna be staff at huawei and what theyre gonna do in their " spare time " or should i say " spy time " ??

will they be learning from indian brain how to improve their r&d - will they be monitoring the indian educational system from within ?

basically the concern is their activities beyond the company even done within the confines of the company builldings ....and the amount of capital invested shouldnt be allowed to impree anyone in india - cos dragon will do ANYTHING to further their aims including splure tons of money - not a problem cos they think long term and BIG dividends

Interesting I wonder why the Indian govt has not thought about the security angle, especially when Chinese are hacking govt computers on a routine basis.

 

[Oracle]

It's good news that Huawei is investing $500 million in India. It creates employment for thousands. The GoI should not have a problem with that. Having said that, yes! the security angle should be closely monitored.

 

[nrj]

reliability of prc products - depends - low end should be ok - higher end just forget it

but really im more concerned about which prc personnel are gonna be staff at huawei and what theyre gonna do in their " spare time " or should i say " spy time " ??

will they be learning from indian brain how to improve their r&d - will they be monitoring the indian educational system from within ?

basically the concern is their activities beyond the company even done within the confines of the company builldings ....and the amount of capital invested shouldnt be allowed to impree anyone in india - cos dragon will do ANYTHING to further their aims including splure tons of money - not a problem cos they think long term and BIG dividends

Interesting I wonder why the Indian govt has not thought about the security angle, especially when Chinese are hacking govt computers on a routine basis.

I agree with colored part. There will be some particular staffing from PRC.

For the rest part, there are always such concerns when foreign company is investing, setting up R&D Centres and employing thousands of native countrymen. There would be some respective parent Govt's inputs, if the said company is dealing in critical areas.

I won't be surprised if some Yankee company's Board is sincerely reporting US intelligence agencies. But GOI can't just disallow foreign companies to start their units in India. Active internal/external surveillance & commerce laws against Corporate-Govt espionage is the answer here.

 

[SHASH2K2]

How come they didnt invest in their dear friends country???

Their dear friend donot have money to invest or buy their Telecom equipments.For business they will have to come to enemy.

 

[roma]

I agree with colored part. There will be some particular staffing from PRC.

For the rest part, there are always such concerns when foreign company is investing, setting up R&D Centres and employing thousands of native countrymen. There would be some respective parent Govt's inputs, if the said company is dealing in critical areas.

I won't be surprised if some Yankee company's Board is sincerely reporting US intelligence agencies. But GOI can't just disallow foreign companies to start their units in India. Active internal/external surveillance & commerce laws against Corporate-Govt espionage is the answer here.

Good comments by LF and nrj - spying goes on with all foreign ventures - doesnt make it right , but it goes on - so i think by now most govts have some countermeasures in place including I HOPE goi as well. But of more concern is the subtle gathering of other information by personal contact bcos hacking can be done form abroad too and the dragon are reasonable competent at that. so why do they want a physical presence in india . I think it would be for special contact - special bribing and getting info which cant be hacked through cputers - maybe to obtain teh physical blueprints of LCA future projects or other defence material which goi doesnt put on their cputer systems or perhaps interfere in teh political process by backing certain political parties or person which/who are not india best , throw a spanner in the works or maybe even ( far out guess ) conduct assissinations ? - after all they aint called dragon for nothing .

 

[nimo_cn]

Very stupid decision made by Huawei, and rumor has it ZTE is also contemplating the possibility of accepting the rules, conceding trade secret which concerns their life and death to Indian government that can not be trusted.

The fact that all western companies refuse to accept the demand of sharing source code with India government just indicates Indian government has made a very outrageous demand and it is very dangerous for telecom company to accept that demand.

What is Indian government gonna do with the source code? Have Huawei and ZTE given a thought to that?

I am very disappointed with Huawei and ZTE, they lack the vision to be successful multinational companies. This time they may probably get themselves killed for the short-term benefit.

 

[Daredevil]

What is Indian government gonna do with the source code? Have Huawei and ZTE given a thought to that?.

Source code tells us if there is a malicious code to intercept the conversations between people on behalf of their governments. In case of Huawei it will be China. So, we will be wary of allowing Chinese telecom companies in such a critical field.

 

[SHASH2K2]

Very stupid decision made by Huawei, and rumor has it ZTE is also contemplating the possibility of accepting the rules, conceding trade secret which concerns their life and death to Indian government that can not be trusted.

The fact that all western companies refuse to accept the demand of sharing source code with India government just indicates Indian government has made a very outrageous demand and it is very dangerous for telecom company to accept that demand.

What is Indian government gonna do with the source code? Have Huawei and ZTE given a thought to that?

I am very disappointed with Huawei and ZTE, they lack the vision to be successful multinational companies. This time they may probably get themselves killed for the short-term benefit.

You are cribbing about GOI forced them to share source code with us . Do you remember how China forced Microsoft to share its source code and due to this we have many cracked or modified versions of Windows available in market now. At least GoI is responsible and will not leak those codes unlike China.

 

[roma]

open you crate of your PC and check how many "made in CHina" are there.

partial quote

true in some cases - i would share with tis forum that prc makes low end product pretty well - value for money at least - due to low cost of labour - so banging that wouldnt be very rational . but when it comes to higher products - well they just havent got there yet.

Rahter than bashing prc manufacturing policies - i think that india would do well to study them and whats the harm of copying some of thier policies ? after all they copied it from somewhere else too - this indian idea of having to re-invent everything - well that's' another story for another day

prc's successfulç mfg policies are apolitical and apply anywhere especially large societies like india

tiger should get their farmers off the poverty pile by getting them into simplistic low-end manuifacturing like prc did in the past - nothing shameful about low-end mfg if it feeds the people eh ?

 

[badguy2000]

partial quote

true in some cases - i would share with tis forum that prc makes low end product pretty well - value for money at least - due to low cost of labour - so banging that wouldnt be very rational . but when it comes to higher products - well they just havent got there yet.

Rahter than bashing prc manufacturing policies - i think that india would do well to study them and whats the harm of copying some of thier policies ? after all they copied it from somewhere else too - this indian idea of having to re-invent everything - well that's' another story for another day

prc's successfulç mfg policies are apolitical and apply anywhere especially large societies like india

tiger should get their farmers off the poverty pile by getting them into simplistic low-end manuifacturing like prc did in the past - nothing shameful about low-end mfg if it feeds the people eh ?

hehe, in one decade, "made in China" will climb along value chain and sweep "made in west countries" off high ends products such as cars,ships and aircrafts.

In one decade, Boeing and Airbus will bankrupt like GM today and be be auctioned due to the competition from Chinese colleague.