Realising that the Chinese infrastructure market could help rejuvenate the company's fortunes, Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) has announced a 50 per cent expansion of its China-based R&D team to over 3,000 employees.
The company said that the new researchers will be based at six research offices across China including Shanghai, Beijing and Hangzhou and will focus on microwave, optical transmission and LTE technologies.
As China Mobile prepares to announce the fourth and final round of procurement for its TD-SCDMA network--in which NSN does not appear to be included--the equipment vendor said that it will establish a new manufacturing line in Shanghai focused on LTE.
Ericsson, which has a similar number of R&D offices in China--and is expected to win around 10 per cent of the China Mobile TD-SCDMA deal--has admitted that the cost associated with these facilities had been rising steadily. However, the huge availability in China of new engineering graduates--600,000 each year, made it a desirable location for expanding its R&D.
Ericsson has also confirmed it has formed a joint venture with Datang focused on TD-LTE, and it hopes to win a significant share of the contracts when Chinese operators start to implement this version of LTE.
In April, NSN secured deals valued at €750 million with China Mobile and China Unicom for infrastructure equipment.
For more on this story:
- read China Knowledge
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