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What is your comment on BSNL and MTNL tenders, which gives preference to local manufacturers?
BSNL and MTNL have recently adopted this criteria in some of their tenders. Given the fact that the telecom infrastructure requirement in India is huge and the teledensity targets are also high, such clauses can be seen as positive as it encourage indigenous manufacturing in telecom. However, the role of policy makers in fostering an environment for attracting investments in local manufacturing will be critical.

Recognizing the immense potential for customized telecom solutions, Huawei Telecommunications has embarked on setting up an equipment manufacturing facility to cater to the Indian Telecom industry. In this regard, Huawei has submitted a proposal to FIPB to hike its investments in India.

At Huawei, we aim to strengthen localization to facilitate our company to further develop local markets and to become a good corporate citizen in respective markets.

What are Huawei's manufacturing plans for India? What are the hurdles you see in equipment manufacturing?
Huawei has planned to invest $60 mn in setting up a facility to manufacture CDMA, UMTS, GSM, and broadband equipment for the Indian telecom market.

In March 2005, Huawei submitted an application to the Indian Government for a license that would allow the company to bid directly for state-run telecommunications turnkey projects. We are confident of a positive reply.

Price undercutting and predatory pricing charges have been leveled by your competitors. How do you react to this?
Every company has a different entry strategy for different markets and countries to get a foothold in the market. Huawei views India as a very important market and a favorable investment destination. We are here to establish ourselves as a key player in the Indian telecom market by providing customized solutions with high quality and quick after sales service. Our strategy benefits the Indian operators/service providers and end users, and ultimately helps in the overall development of the Indian telecom industry.

Telecom operators today are looking for more than just an equipment vendor. They are interested in a long-term partner that can deliver value and help them exploit the various growth opportunities that convergence brings. In almost all bids, a stringent technical evaluation is performed even before commercial terms are considered. In many cases, our price is higher than other bidders.

Huawei wins customers because we provide a superior value proposition that combines our ability to rapidly respond to customers' needs with comprehensive, sophisticated and scalable solutions that can be implemented at a lower TCO. We attribute our success to our ability to rapidly respond to customers' needs, high quality products, and excellent service.

How has been the overall performance of your company in the last three years in India? Break up of performance: Infrastructure, enterprise, and handset business?
Employing over 350 professionals, Huawei Telecommunications has set up marketing, sales and engineering support offices in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore to provide quicker response to its customers.

In a short span of time, Huawei has established itself as a prominent vendor of high quality and customized telecom solutions in India, having supplied optical transmission solutions, broadband access including IPDSLAM and MSAN, CDMA 2000 1X, GSM, mobile terminals, and intelligent network solutions, value added application and software to leading public and private telecom operators in India. Huawei's sales revenue in the Indian market has steadily been rising and has posted cumulative sales turnover of $300 mn in the past four years.

What is the status of your partnership with HFCL?
We have a couple of projects that are under successful execution in partnership with HFCL.

By launching handset models at CommunicAsia, Huawei has shown some aggression. Why were you slow to opportunities in handset business in India?

Huawei is emerging as a strong mobile handset manufacturer in the global 3G and CDMA handset markets. It partnered with Vodafone for 3G handsets in February 2006.

Huawei sees India as one of the most important markets in the Asia Pacific region.  We are one of the main CDMA terminal vendors in the Indian market and have established positive relationships with major operators such as Tata, Reliance, BSNL and MNTL. The introduction of our new CDMA handsets marks the next phase of Huawei's expansion and development in the wireless market. We plan to launch more CDMA mobile handsets in India later this year.

Sudesh Prasad in Singapore
sudeshp@cybermedia.co.in