Alcatel-Lucent to invest $200mn in India

French telecom major Alcatel, which recently acquired Lucent, today said it will invest $200 million (about Rs 1,000 crore) in India every year over the next few years.

"Till now, we have invested more than one billion euro (close to Rs 6,000 crore), and are still continuing. Our future investment plans are to the tune of $200 million every year in various activities including R&D," Ravi Sharma, country head of Alcatel-Lucent, told PTI.

Alcatel, which has a manufacturing tie-up with ITI, has already made two plants at Mankapur and Rai Bareily operational, he said, adding more plants would be functional for manufacturing ADSL - an equipment used for offering broadband services.

With the acquisition of Lucent Technologies, the French telecom giant now has a reach in the emerging CDMA technology. In GSM services, Alcatel has a major share in the operations of state-owned service providers - BSNL and MTNL - and is also in talks with most of the private players.

Asked if a new entity would supply equipment to private firms, he said: "We are in talks with all new operators who are expanding operations including Reliance Communications." He, however, declined to give details.

Sharma, who will be heading Alcatel-Lucent's South Asia operations, said the company would offer solutions in the new wireless Wi-Max technology both in terms of infrastructure and customer premises equipment (CPE). Alcatel has a tie-up with C-DoT for CPE and with ITI for manufacturing base stations.

Sharma claimed the company has 50% market share in fixed line telecom, and 70% in submarine operations to create bandwidth.