Cisco had installed its first manufacturing unit in India in 2016
U.S. networking company Cisco Systems will set up a facility in India to manufacture hardware products, local newspaper The Economic Times reported, citing a source with knowledge of the matter.
“Cisco is setting up a manufacturing unit to produce equipment and hardware locally and to build a supply chain for markets,” the source said.
According to the report, Cisco aims to take advantage of the government of India’s programs aimed at boosting local manufacturing. The source also said that Cisco’s new production facility would be set up via a partnership with an original design manufacturer (ODM) partner.
In 2016, Cisco installed a manufacturing unit in the city of Pune.
The Indian government recently unveiled a number of programs to foster local manufacturing with its Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India) initiative, which includes efforts to increase foreign investment in India.
Recently, the U.S.-based O-RAN provider Mavenir also set up its manufacturing unit in Pune to produce 2G, 4G, and 5G O-RAN for its OpenBeam portfolio in India, suited for Indian and international frequency bands.
“The OpenBeam Open RAN radio solutions are available across all frequency bands and can be used for a wide range of use cases, including enterprises and public settings across urban or rural environments,” Mavenir had said in a statement.
In related news, integrated manufacturing solutions company Sanmina and Reliance Industries subsidiary Reliance Strategic Business Ventures Limited (RSBVL) announced they have completed a previously announced joint venture transaction.
“The joint venture will create a world-class electronic manufacturing hub in India, in line with the Prime Minister’s ‘Make in India’ vision. The joint venture will prioritize high technology infrastructure hardware, for growth markets, and across industries such as communications networking (5G, cloud infrastructure, hyperscale datacenters), medical and healthcare systems, industrial and cleantech, and defense and aerospace,” Sanmina said in a release.
The joint venture will create a manufacturing facility in Chennai that will serve as an incubation center to support the product development and hardware start-up ecosystem in India, the company added.
Telecom gear manufacturers are expecting to capture business opportunities with the upcoming 5G deployments in the country.
India’s Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi officially announced the start of the 5G era in the country on October 1, as part of the India Mobile Congress event.
Vaishnaw also announced that over 200 Indian cities will get 5G service in the next six months. He added that 5G services could be available in 80-90% of the country in the next 2 years.
The 5G spectrum auction in India concluded on August 1 and according to Vaishnaw, local carriers purchased a total $19 billion worth of spectrum.
The first telco to launch 5G in India was Bharti Airtel, which has activated its 5G services in eight cities with plans to progressively cover the entire country by March 2024. Some of the cities where Airtel already offers 5G include Delhi, Mumbai, Varanasi and Bangalore.
Meanwhile, Reliance Jio Infocomm said it plans to launch 5G services in the cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata by the end of October. The carrier has previously said it expect to cover the entire country with 5G by the end of next year.
