Telecom Lead Asia: Ericsson has increased investment in China. The R&D center in China will focus more on 3G and 4G.
Ericsson on Thursday announced its investment in Nanjing R&D Center building, which covers a total area of 11,700sq m, to enhance the company’s R&D capability in 3G and LTE.
In 2011, Economic Times reported that apart from investing approximately 15 percent of its total sales into R&D in 2010, Ericsson had more than 20,000 R&D employees by year-end. Over 80 per cent of its product development is software related.
Nanjing Ericsson Panda Communications (ENC) is Ericsson’s largest production supply center and one of the most important research and development bases in the world.
In the past five years, Ericsson invested more than CNY 450 million in ENC.
China Mobile and China Unicom are gearing up for 4G launches in China. In India, Reliance Industries-owned Infotel Broadband and Aircel will be launching TD-LTE services soon. Airtel introduced 4G in April 2012. Ericsson’s R&D on 4G will be aimed at global operators.
“In the past 20 years, ENC has grown from a local production factory into a world class global production and supply unit. In fact, ENC of today is truly serves as a benchmark for the success of the globalization of Ericsson. ENC will play an even more important role in the development of the ICT industry in China and around the world,” said Mats H Olsson, president of Ericsson North East Asia and Chairman of Ericsson China.
In 2008, Ericsson invested to expand the total area of factory buildings and ancillary facilities to approximately 13,000sq m. The expansion, completed in 2009, increased the ENC’s production area by 50 percent and doubled its production capacity, which is mainly devoted to 3G equipment.
In 2011, Ericsson invested to double the scale of its R&D Center in Nanjing and its infrastructure to meet the demand for expanded operations.
The Nanjing R&D Center currently employs about 500 R&D engineers who are working on software and hardware for various communication standards, including GSM, WCDMA, LTE FDD and TDD (TD-LTE). The radio network controllers and radio base stations developed by the center have been deployed by major operators in more than 100 networks around the world.
