Business | Investment
Sony Ericsson re-routes $300m to Asian market
Sony Ericsson Global is re-routing an investment of $300 million (Dh1.41 billion) to India and other Asian markets, according to a top company official.
- By Nadia Saleem, Staff Reporter
- Published: 00:01 November 12, 2008
Dubai: Sony Ericsson Global is re-routing an investment of $300 million (Dh1.41 billion) to India and other Asian markets, according to a top company official.
Hideki Komiyama, president of Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications Management told media at the six-day women's tennis Sony Ericsson Championships, which ended on Tuesday in Doha, that the company will make an announcement in Chennai next week about their research and development facility.
"That's where we are going to deploy new product development, for products for India, as well as for this region," Komiyama said. He added that they would be hiring software engineers from the area, as "India has a lot of software talent. We are going to recruit and then develop software for global requirement."
Aldo Liguori, corporate vice-president of global communications and public relations at Sony Ericsson told Gulf News that the facility, established at the end of last year, now has a little less than a 100 staff with expansions underway.
Funding
The investment will come through cost-cuts in Europe and be directed to emerging markets in a move towards cost-efficiency and profitability, after the financial turmoil hit the company to a break-even financial result in the third quarter of this year.
The company plans to reduce costs by 300 million euros annually by the second half of 2009 through employee headcount reduction by 2,000 and other cost cutting measures.
While Europe suffers as the worst-affected market for the company, the Middle East and North Africa region continues to enjoy growth in sales.
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