Nokia and HCL Infosystems announce long-term distribution strategy

Nokia and HCL Infosystems jointly announced a long term distribution strategy for developing the growing Indian mobile phones market. As a part of this announcement, Nokia has extended its distribution agreement with HCL for the next several years. Nokia and HCL Infosystems have also decided to develop a go-to-market strategy to jointly address the coverage needs of the urban and widely dispersed rural areas.



Ajai Chowdhry, Chairman, HCL Infosystems said, "The business dynamics have undergone a sea of change since the inception of our relationship with Nokia. India has crossed the 100-million telephone mark to become the fifth largest telecom network in the world after China, the US, Japan and Germany. The growth of this sector will result in the entire country carpeted by telecom network and all the villages connected. As a result, the next wave of growth is expected from smaller towns and remote locations. 



In the last ten years, while the HCL-Nokia relationship has witnessed strong growth in the Indian GSM handset market, there is increased need for a distribution network that will meet the projected market growth of 200 million subscribers by 2007, versus 75 million at the end of 2005. This announcement reaffirms Nokia and HCL's commitment to the growing Indian market, to ensure that mobile devices are accessible to more consumers in cities and towns across India."



Sanjeev Sharma, MD, Customer and Market Operations, Nokia India added, "In order to address the challenges of the growth and increasing geographic spread of the Indian market, it is important HCL and Nokia utilize their existing infrastructure and resources in the most efficient manner to serve consumer interests.”



Nokia has no current concrete plans of appointing a second regional distributor in India at this stage for GSM mobile devices. 



Fact-sheet on HCL-Nokia relationship



· HCL-Nokia have created a multiple level distribution network consisting of a large number of redistribution points 



· HCL has also established over 150 Nokia Care Centers managed by HCL and franchisee operations, considering to be the best customer care network phone in India 



· HCL-Nokia care operation is ISO 9001-2000 certified by BVQI