Mobile phone maker Nokia has said that its state-of-the-art facility at Sriperumbudur near here has crossed the 500-million mark in handset production.
This is, perhaps, the fastest production ramp-up that Nokia has seen in any of its ten facilities across the globe.
The 500th million phone, a Nokia C3-00, will be autographed by brand ambassador Shahrukh Khan and auctioned. The proceeds of the auction will go to a charity.
Nokia has also decided to gift all its employees a Nokia C3-00 handset as a gesture of appreciation for contributing towards achieving this milestone.
Addressing a press conference here on Thursday, Prakash Katama, Director, Chennai Factory Operations, Nokia India, said the Finland-based company had invested around $285 million and carried out two expansions in the Indian facility. Since it was set up in 2006, the facility had grown to become the largest mobile phone making unit in the world, he said. The Nokia Telecom SEZ (Special Economic Zone) today housed five component suppliers, he said.
Mr. Katama said there was lot of room for increasing the local content of the handset made from Sriperumbudur. Currently, the local content was around 20-30 per cent, he said. The handsets made in India went to over 100 countries across six continents, he added. He expressed confidence that the company would touch the one billion handset production mark sooner than later.
