Nortel sees India as bigger market
By agencies   |   Friday, 07 October 2005, 19:30 IST
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OTTAWA: To expand its presence in India’s highly competitive telecommunication market, Nortel Networks Corp is poised to benefit from those growing pains, the company’s CEO said. Nortel, which is trying to boost sales following a protracted accounting scandal that hurt demand, is also banking on its wireless joint venture with South Korea's LG Electronics to fuel growth. Bill Owens, Chief Executive of the company said: "The cost reduction will continue to be an element of Nortel's strategic movement because you have to compete at lower costs.” Nortel’s recent acquisition of PEC Solutions, does not includes in its outlook, which provides tech services to the government and its LG venture. Owens said: “We have taken some of these partnership and gone to other markets to help us to reduce costs in other bids outside of India,” The company is also interested in pursuing markets in China, Japan and Russia, where Nortel is "building several strong partnerships." Counting with LG venture to drive wireless demand, Owens said: "Our Korean LG venture is terribly important to Nortel strategy. Not because it's going to hugely change our business in revenue or profits, but because it's a wonderful testing place; it's a large market and important market.” He said: “We are likely to deploy a quality 4G network before anyone else ... perhaps in the next couple of years. Fourth-generation wireless technology, or 4G, has higher data transmission rates than the still burgeoning 3G standard.” The company has nine per cent market share in the world's most widely used wireless technology, GSM, or the global system for mobile communications. “We will pursue partnerships to bolster its sales of routers to businesses,” Owens said adding that the Nortel's long-delayed edge router, known as the MPE9500 or Neptune, is being tested by some customers and will be introduced early next year.

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