By acquiring the wireless modem group of Nokia Corporation, Renesas Mobile entered the Indian market on December 1, 2010. Renesas Mobile Corporation, a subsidiary of Renesas Electronics Corporation, opened its research and development (R&D) centre in Bengaluru in May 2011. In a telephonic conversation with Srabani Sen of Electronics Bazaar, Allan Frederiksen, managing director of Renesas Mobile India Pvt Ltd and David McTernan, director of strategic marketing and communications, Renesas Mobile Corporation, said the company’s expectations from India are huge, and its growth target for India is higher than for the rest of the world.
EB: What was the thought process behind starting an R&D centre in Bengaluru?
Our presence in Bengaluru is a key strategic decision as there is not only great availability of engineering talent, but also the availability of a network of companies and partners in various areas. The city also offers good scope to maintain and expand university relations. Opening the R&D centre is seen as an important step for Renesas Mobile in leveraging the opportunities that the company sees in India.
India has immense potential as far as its mobile phone penetration is concerned. Broadband penetration is also very low in India, but the recent broadband wireless access (BWA) licences should have a huge impact. In India, the handset market is mostly 2G, but 3G is also picking up and long term evolution (LTE) time division duplex (TDD) plans are actively being promoted in India.
EB: What are the future plans of Renesas Mobile in India?
Our objective is to become the leading mobile platform vendor within the multi-mode 2G, 3G and LTE space, including the TD-SCDMA (time division synchronous code division multiple access) and TD-LTE (time division duplex long term evolution) variants. Many original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) make products for India as it is such a big market, and Renesas Mobile India can help those OEMs locally.
We differentiate ourselves from the competition through our world class technology, which has been proven the world over and that enables OEMs to build products for the global market, including India. We aim to deliver more than our customers’ expectations. That’s how Renesas Mobile stands ahead of the competition. We want to continue growing and successfully attain aggressive business objectives. Over the next five years, Renesas Mobile expects to invest US$ 115 million in India, which includes personnel and capital costs. Renesas Electronics, the parent company, aims to double its sales in India to US$ 100 million by the financial year 2012.
EB: What is your connection with Nokia? Do you develop modems and chipsets only for Nokia?
Renesas Mobile started operations in Bengaluru on December 1, 2010, with the completion of Renesas Electronics acquisition of the wireless modem group of Nokia Corporation, which provided proven wireless modem technology as well as world class R&D teams from the wireless modem group. Today, we continue to work with Nokia as one of our customers. The transfer of Nokia’s wireless modem business enables Renesas Mobile to maximise the value of Nokia’s technology assets and engineering expertise in delivering advanced mobile platform solutions to the market by combining them with Renesas’ market proven multimedia processing and RF technologies.
No, we are not just developing products for Nokia; we also develop products for the open market. We offer advanced and innovative products and services for mobile phones, car infotainment solutions, consumer electronics and industrial applications.
EB: What are your marketing strategies for India?
We have a number of strategies to establish our presence in India. We will continue investing in India and recruit more local employees. We are strengthening our relationship with Indian operators to more accurately take their requirements and needs into account for our long term product development plans. In addition, we are developing different products to target different markets. We will assist local companies to develop products for Indian customers. We also plan to initiate discussions with Indian companies who might be interested in adopting our technology.
EB: Are you open to collaborations in India?
We are already engaged in research collaborations with Indian universities. We are also planning to expand the scope of our research collaborations; as a matter of fact, our global research team will visit Bengaluru soon to start such collaborations. Furthermore, our technology marketing and research teams will visit India to talk with Indian operators to take their needs into account in our long term technology development roadmap.
EB: What are the innovative products and services you offer?
Renesas Mobile offers advanced triple (2G/3G/4G) and dual mode (2G/3G) communications centric semiconductor chipsets, and platforms built on these chipsets, to provide innovative solutions. Customers can use these in their consumer products. Cumulatively, there are around 2 billion handsets sold that are based on the latest technology now owned by Renesas Mobile. This modem technology has been proven on all the major infrastructure vendors and is used by over 200 operators worldwide.
Our new capabilities will be based on the long term evolution of third generation partnership projects (3GPP LTE), which is the latest standard in the mobile network technology tree. These communication devices will be capable of interacting with car manufacturers or other applications. In addition to 2G, 3G, and LTE, Renesas Mobile India is involved in core technology development within TD-SCDMA and TD-LTE technologies.
EB: How is Renesas Mobile India contributing to generating jobs?
At Bengaluru, we have grown to 230 employees, with over 60 full time sub-contractors. As our business grows over the coming years, we also plan to increase the activities and the number of employees in this city.
EB: How can the Indian market benefit from Renesas Mobile India?
As the Indian market develops with 3G expansion and broadband wireless also in the pipeline, Renesas Mobile offers a unique proposition with its highly integrated 2G/3G dual mode as well as 2G/3G/LTE triple mode products. The seamless interoperability between these systems will enable operators to gradually roll out the new systems while consumers can benefit from seamless handovers and service continuity. As you may know, high integration levels also lead to attractive value and small form factors. Renesas Mobile is very interested in working with the local industry to ensure the successful roll out of these new technologies.
