Nokia to set up a 5G Internet of Things Lab in India
Nokia has announced it is to set up a 5G Internet of Things Lab in Bengaluru, India. This will be the first such lab to be set up in emerging markets and will be ready to launch by December. The main purpose of the centre is to capture the requirements of the customers from emerging markets around 5G and IoT.

Success in India is top of the agenda for Nokia, says Rajeev Suri , president and chief executive of the Finnish communications and information technology company. In his first media interaction after announcing the new leadership and organisational structure for the post-merger Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent entity, Suri tells ET’s Romit Guha and Gulveen Aulakh that India is one of the top five priority markets for Nokia and it will also house a 5G Internet of Things Lab, the fifth such lab globally for the company. The first such lab to be set up in emerging markets will be ready by December, he says. Edited excerpts:We are very much on track to close the transaction in the first half of 2016. We have approvals from all the major countries. We are waiting for approvals from China, the French government and a couple of tiny ones.In a nutshell, what we said is that let’s take the Alcatel-Lucent set-up for the businesses that do not overlap and let them remain in their current organisation construct.We have announced (operating cost) synergies worth ¤900 million (about Rs 6,600 crore) by 2019. Naturally, that means that there will be some headcount impact. We do not know where yet, but broadly speaking the areas are G&A (general and administration), wireless radio, R&D (research and development), procurement and maybe some sales. And I don’t have all the details of the countries.The challenge is always around culture. I think that’s often underestimated because people focus on the substance and the practical, soft steps go missing.This one will succeed without a doubt. We were very clear that merger of equals don’t succeed. So, we wanted clear governance. The chairman and CEO are from Nokia and the team has been selected on merit. So no politics, no nonsense.Another big difference is the overlap in only one part of the business. Everything else is complementary. I don’t have IP (internet protocol). I don’t have transport. I don’t have fixed (assets), so I don’t need to integrate them. Radio is where the heavy lifting will take place in wireless and that’s where we need to integrate and there of course will be some struggles during the process.Our portfolio is more end-to-end than Ericsson’s and it is more like Huawei. Both of us are more end-to-end because we have IP, fixed, transport, mobile and the applications and analytic business on top. If you think about Ericsson it lacks some of this. It doesn’t have IP, doesn’t have fixed, and doesn’t have that credibility in transport. So we are the western alternative to Huawei.Selectively, yes. You want to do it for strategic deals. We will invest in diversifying into new areas, move beyond operators, to public safety, to enterprise. We want to target cloud players like Google , Facebook and so on.The combined entity will be number one or as close to number one right when we begin operation. What I feel good about is that we have a complementary portfolio by the customers we have. They have Reliance. We have all the big guys. I feel good that we can now sell microwave, optical fixed, IP, which I didn’t have earlier.So, now I can make higher margin because it is my own product. When it comes to LTE, our aspiration is to be number one even here. Reliance may have given Samsung a head start simply because they are the selected vendor but when LTE roll-outs happen in the mainstream, in the next couple of years, there is no doubt in my mind that we want to compete to be number one. I would say as a country India is in the top five. We do everything in India that we do globally and it is the largest country by headcount for us globally.We will be setting up a 5G Internet of Things (IoT) lab in Bengaluru which is one of five globally.We are not at that stage yet to talk investment and headcount but we are setting it up in Bengaluru and will be ready by the end of the year. We have other such ones in US, China, Japan and Korea. Our vision is very much aligned to Digital India…that the world is increasingly becoming a programmable world. There will be sensors, modules, devices everywhere...about 15 billion devices in the next 10 years or so, maybe more. The main purpose of that centre is basically to capture the requirements of the customers from the emerging market around 5G and IoT, so that it can fit into our overall product portfolio in the IoT space. This is the first of its kind built close to emerging markets.The economy is getting momentum. But one can say that from the lofty expectations there were from the government it’s been a bit slower. But if you step back, India is getting a real new lease of life. This could be a really big ecommerce market. There could be a lot of startups and entrepreneurs like we have seen in China.We tried to get a buyer and there is still interest in buying. Foxconn is coming to India, they want to do stuff. There are other local parties that are interested. I think it’s a real opportunity because it’s a world-class factory and people would get employed again if we get the right buyer and the authorities defreeze the asset. We are going through the Mutual Agreement Procedure (on tax case). We would rather go with that friendly process.