Olive Telecom to invest Rs 100 cr for design centre

NEW DELHI: Wireless devices maker Olive Telecommunications today said it will invest Rs 100 crore to set up a product design centre in Gurgaon.

"We will set up a full-cycle design centre in Gurgaon. The company will invest about Rs 100 crore in the centre and it is expected to be operational in the first quarter of 2010," Olive Telecommunications Chairman Arun Khanna told reporters here.

The centre is expected to be operational in the first quarter of 2010. The company will hire about 40 professionals for the centre, Khanna said.

The project will be funded mostly through internal accruals. "We will fund it internally, but we have also received interest from investors and are considering them," Khanna said adding that the company would look at launching an IPO in three years' time.
The company, which launched its range of converged devices including netbooks and mobile phones, said it expects to sell about 10 million devices globally by the end of 2010.

"Our target is 10 million devices by next year. Of this, about 30 per cent should come from India," he said, adding that the company is also targetting USD one billion annualised global sales by 2012.

Olive launched seven mobile handsets priced Rs 999 onwards, while the netbooks come at about Rs 23,000.

Olive has sold about 20 million devices in the last four years and is eyeing a 5 per cent market share in the mobile handset market in India by 2010.