Kyocera to invest $4.2 m in B’lore SDC

CIOL Bureau & CNS

BANGALORE: While announcing the official inauguration of Kyocera's software development center (SDC) in Bangalore, Kyocera Wireless India engineering director Samartha Raghava informed that the company has invested $ one million to date in its Indian operations. "We have planned an investment of around $4.2 million in 2003-04," he added.

According to the company, it has already established relationships with carriers including Tata, Reliance, BSNL and MTNL. According to reports, Kyocera’s contract with MTNL faced some hiccups when the Central Vigilance Commission questioned the contract on grounds that the company had paid a higher price per handset.

Kyocera did not comment on the reported problem but insisted that it was upbeat about capturing a big share of the CDMA market in India, having already sold 4 lakh phones in India comprising of various models from its entry-level phones to its PDA smart phones.

"Reliance offers our PDA smart phones which is available at an approximate price of Rs 35,000. Tata has recently launched our Phantom mobile models and will soon be following up with Blade and Rave models," he said.



When asked about the recent explosion of one of Kyocera's Phantom model phones, Kyocera Wireless Corp software engineering VP Rafael Bar said, "We have stopped shipment of those models at the moment. We are also investigating the reasons behind the explosion." He refused to comment on whether the damage had been done due to the usage of a battery that was not meant for the particular phone.





The Bangalore SDC has been functional since July 2003 and employs more than 60 people in software development at present. The company plans to add 40 more employees by November end.


"In India, the wireless subscriber base grew by 102 percent in 2002-03 and it is expected to rise from $14 million to around $120 million by 2008. Even assuming that CDMA has a 30 percent market share, the market would stand at a healthy $40 million and we will aim to gain as big a share of that market as possible," said Raghava.


The global CDMA handset manufacturer had set up an ODC with Sasken in December 2002. Kyocera Wireless India is a wholly owned subsidiary of Kyocera Wireless Corp, which is a subsidiary of Kyocera International, which acquired QUALCOMM's CDMA consumer wireless phone business in 2000. "We will be branching out into software product management for Indian carriers, software and system testing as a part of product testing as well as other aspects of phone engineering," said Raghava.





CIOL Bureau & CNS