India to be global services hub for Alcatel-Lucent

Franco-American telecom equipment vendor Alcatel-Lucent has shortlisted India as the new location for its global services headquarters, which will entail an investment of $500 million over the next three years, company CEO Ben Verwaayen said.

"India is one of the strategic markets of depth of talent, new capabilities and socio-services to support 3G and 4G. Given all these factors, we have shortlisted India as the global services headquarters, thereby making it a fourth pillar of strategy," he said at a news conference.

"This will involve an investment of half a billion dollars and hiring substantial number of resources over the next three years," Verwaayen added.

The company already has over 12,000 people in India. The decision on the centre, which could take "weeks and months", would offer services and software solutions to its clients and also applications for phones, he said.

Currently, such activities of the Paris-based company are scattered across the US, China and France and Alcatel Lucent wants to make a single location for this, he said. "We have the business opportunity in India... it is important to have some concentration of capabilities... and the true leading market could be the one in India", said Verwaayen.

In recent times, Alcatel Lucent has bagged two big orders from Indian telecom carriers, namely managed services deals from Bharti Airtel and RCom. India is widely seen as the favourite location for a services hub by many telecom and IT companies due to its huge and talented human resources prowess and lower costs.

Verwaayen said the company expects to grow more in the data segment in India. "We will grow in the IP (Internet Protocol) segment, where we have strength. The growth driver for us are the changes happening in the market, which are more related to data and the drive for services.

Managed services is an important part, so is systems integration", Verwaayen said. The just concluded 3G and BWA auction also throws open huge business opportunities for Alcatel Lucent.

The Paris-based firm has been operating in India for the last two decades. The 15.2 billion euro company is expecting a revival in economic activity to tick off demand for telecom equipment orders. Last month, Alcatel Lucent posted a huge net loss for the first quarter of 2010.