Thomson Asia to set up R&D centre in Bangalore

Bangalore: Thomson Asia Ltd, a subsidiary of France-based Thomson Group, a technology provider to the media, communications and entertainment industries, will set up a research and development centre in Bangalore, which will be operational by the end of July this year, company officials said. This is in line with expanding its interests beyond the basic telephony business where the company has been active in the Indian market.

The new centre will start off operations with 150 engineers on its rolls, with plans to ramp up employee strength to 600 engineers by 2010, Deepak Bhatia, business head with Thomson's India holding company Thomson Holdings India Pvt Ltd, said. The Bangalore centre will be Thomson's eighth worldwide, and will carry out advanced software development for the company's video-centric solutions.

'We develop a lot of video-centric solutions for products like high-definition digital video cameras, editing and printing solutions and set-top boxes. Software development and encoding for our entire video product chain and video technology solutions will be done out of the upcoming R&D centre in Bangalore,' Bhatia said. 'We are currently moving a lot of software development work to Bangalore, since localisation is a key element of our expansion and support strategy for our customers worldwide,' he added.

The company has taken its detente with Alcatel a step further by launching basic telephony products under the Alcatel brand in India. Thomson will retail the Alcatel products under its umbrella in 60 cities in India, and is targeting a 10 per cent share of the basic telephony market in the next 12 months, Dider Goujard, managing director, Thomson Asia Ltd, said. The Alcatel brand is being launched in India through an exclusive marketing tie-up with Unitech Trading & Imports.

Thomson currently sells basic telephony products under the GE brand through a tie-up with Bhart Teletech Ltd in India. A major share of its basic telephony business comes from basic telephone service providers and the corporate segment.

Thomson's India revenues have increased over fivefold in the last five years, Bhatia said, without divulging specific numbers. 'Service providers comprising BSNL, MTNL, Airtel, Tata and local private exchanges alone account for over 3 lakh units per month in the Indian basic telephony market. The retail chains alone contribute 1.20 lakh units, and this is a key target area for Thomson in India,' Goujard said.

The entire Alcatel range of products will be handled by Unitech in India. Besides, Thomson is likely to launch its showpiece Web phone Symbio in India through Unitech soon. The wireless phone comes with Web radio, RSS feeds and built-in radio library.

Pricing would depend on volume projections, Bhatia said, without elaborating. Bhatia said that Thomson's basic telephony products would be launched in India through a variety of distribution channels which the company is 'working out' presently.

With revenues of ¤5.62 billion last year, Thomson sold over 32 million units worldwide, of which 20 million units were absorbed by the North American market alone.

Thomson Asia Ltd, formerly Atlinks, was founded in January 2000, post the merger between Thomson and Alcatel. It is a subsidiary of Thomson since 2003. Mumbai-headquartered Thomson India also runs offices in New Delhi and Bangalore.