Swedish telecom major Ericsson will be the first multinational to manufacture radio base stations for mobile phones in India to cater to the operators here for their network roll-outs.
"Ericsson is now expanding the existing manufacturing level from its digital switching systems like local exchanges for use in Indian telecom networks to radio base stations which makes it the first MNC to manufacture such items," Carl-Henric Svanberg, president and COO, Ericsson told at a summit in New Delhi.
Base stations constitute about 60 per cent of the capex of any mobile operator and currently the equipment is totally imported leading to high cost of the network infrastructure.
The key manufacturers are Siemens, Nokia and Ericsson. Svanberg said the company will invest in India more and part of this increased investment will go towards this new initiative.
He declined to divulge the quantum of the investment. Speaking on the occasion, Jan Cambell, president, Ericsson India said: "We are increasing the supply flow in India. We will bring in the parts of radio base stations, integrate them here, test them to make the readymade size and ship them from our facility in Rajasthan."
He added that the assembled product would be for the use of Indian market.
The localisation of Ericsson's base stations could have an edge over its rivals on price points over a period of time as the indigenous product will have the possibility of being priced lower in comparison to imported products of Nokia and Siemens.