Flextronics is the world's top electronics manufacturing services (EMS) provider. It ended the last fiscal with revenues of $14.5 billion. Flextronics, which a network of facilities in 32 countries spanning five continents, has a growing presence in India too. Venkat Rajendran, Head of Flextronics Design Asia, spoke to VOICE&DATA on the current opportunities in India and the possibilities of the company setting up a manufacturing presence here.

Why are international manufacturers suddenly waking up to India? What is your view?
The world is getting more and more optimistic about India in the medium to long term. In the recent times, the Indian market has been steadily increasing and gathering size. Some tax reforms too have happened. The reduced tax regime and increasing market size seem to be some of the obvious drivers for this increased interest on India.

What is Flextronics own position on India?
We have large manufacturing plants in other Asian locations which are very competitive today. We do see positive developments in India. But we expect more to happen and we will continuously evaluate India for our manufacturing strategy. Flextronics is optimistic about India for the future.

Flextronics already has a presence in manufacturing in India. We have taken a big step for design in India recently. We have more than 3000 Flex employees in India now. We see our design and manufacturing complementing each other well.

What specific improvements you want to see happen in India ?
There are expectations for improvement in labor laws, tax rationalization, infrastructure etc. Lot of talk is already in the air. We hope these materialize soon.

What does Flextronics manufacture today in India? Do you manufacture telecom equipment and cellular phones?
Our India operation has so far been focused on high mix - low volume. Major part of manufacturing is in the Telecom segment today. We already manufacture equipment for fiber optic communication, wireless base station, wireless on local loop and other telecom systems. We continue to look at cellular phones as an opportunity.