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ITI bags Rs 100 cr Alcatel deal
By BS Markets Bureau in Mumbai
March 02, 2006 12:07 IST
ITI Ltd has bagged a contact from Alcatel to supply 300 BTS (base station equipment) for the company's GSM executions abroad.

The deal, estimated to be worth over Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion), also marks the first success story of ITI, trying to expand its customer-base beyond BSNL.

"This is the first major initiative in the country to manufacture and cater GSM equipment to export markets," ITI said in a notification to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The company, currently has agreements with Alcatel, under which it sources components from the latter while putting together GSM equipment meant for deployment on BSNL network.

"This contract is likely to open up higher-margin deals than what it has with BSNL right now," said Alok Shinde, head of ICT practice at Frost and Sullivan India.

As part of their broad business tie-up, Alcatel and ITI also have an agreement under which the duo will set up indigenous manufacturing capacity in India and outsource its requirement for growing export markets.

The current deal is seen by experts as part of the over all "quid pro quo" strategy between the two companies.

In the earlier agreement, it was envisaged that the manufacturing of BTS equipment will be taken up by ITI under technology transfer Alcatel. Following this agreement, ITI had, under the above technology transfer agreement, set up a manufacturing facility for BTS at Mankapur.

Partly with the help of components sourced from Alcatel, ITI has so far put up network for one million lines GSM capacity in the BSNL west zone. "With the successful completion of this project, BSNL placed an additional order for three million lines for supply to west zone," the company said.

BS Markets Bureau in Mumbai
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