Nokia to invest Rs.650 crore in manufacturing facility at Chennai
Chennai: Nokia Corporation of Finland will invest about Rs650 crore ($150 million) in a manufacturing plant at Sriperumbudur, near Chennai. The new plant, its 10th in the world, should begin production in the first half of 2006, company officials told a press conference here today.

Nokia has identified about 210 acres of land at the SIPCOT industrial park in Sriperumbudur and will begin work on the plant once it gets ownership of the land. Nokia's suppliers were also expected to establish facilities in the land allotted to the company, officials said.

According to a Nokia press release, the company expects to begin construction in April. It foresees ramping up the factory gradually and the work force reaching approximately 2,000 employees when production is in full scale.

"India which is set at the heart of the region where mobile communications is growing rapidly was a natural location of choice for the new production facility," a release said.

Company officials would not provide details of the production capacity at the plant or how many of its suppliers would establish facilities in "Nokia Park" or what their investment would be.
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Hyundai launches mini SUV - Tucson
New Delhi: After the Terracan, Hyundai Motors has launched its mini SUV - Tucson. The five-seater Tucson is priced at Rs14.3 lakh ex showroom Delhi, putting it in the same league as the Honda CR-V. The immediate plan is to sell between 1800-2400 Tucsons in India in this fiscal.

Hyundai is projecting total sales of 2.6 lakh units for this financial year, 16 per cent higher than its sales for 2004-05.

Hyundai also expects its total sales to be around Rs7500 crore for the last fiscal.

Hyundai is now well established at number three among the big auto players in India and the company says it is aiming to better its rank within the next five years.
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Maruti to invest Rs.3,271 crore in two new plants
New Delhi: Maruti Suzuki wil invest Rs3,271 crore in two new plants as announced earlier, while a new car manufacturing unit in Manesar, Haryana will see an investment of Rs1,524 crore.

This plant will have an initial capacity of 100,000 units annually which can be scaled up to 250,000 units. In the Manesar plant, Suzuki will hold just 30 per cent stake while MUL will have the larger 70 per cent. The second plant will cater to the manufacture of diesel and petrol engines as well as transmissions at an investment of Rs1,748 crore.

Initially, the plant will produce 100,000 diesel engines, 20,000 petrol engines, and 140,000 transmissions. This again will be scaled up as required with a potential for 300,000 diesel engines.

Suzuki will hold 51 per cent stake in the engine plant, while Maruti will have 49 per cent stake. The new plants will be operational by the end of 2006.
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Tata Tele (Mah) reaches one million subscriber mark
Mumbai: Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) has reached the one million-subscriber mark for its Tata Indicom services, and is scaling up capacity to cater to more than 2.5 million subscribers by the end of the current year.

This turnaround also involves a huge clean up exercise, in which a considerable amount of bad debt has been waived of, company officials said at a news briefing here today.

The company's percentage of monthly incremental subscriber additions rose from 4 per cent per month at the end of 2004, to 22 per cent currently.

The collection ratio of customer debt, which was just at 40 per cent of dues as of September 2004, is now 100 per cent and voluntary churn has been brought down to 0.6 per cent, officials said.

The company's capex for the current year would be between Rs700 crore and Rs800 crore and this would largely go towards expansion of its CDMA mobile network. The funds are available with the company; and the debt markets could be accessed if found necessary, said company officials.

The company has customers such as Larsen & Toubro for which it is proving complete telecom solutions. Additionally, the company will be providing telecom solutions on an ASP model, and is already talking to corporates, said officials.
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M&M receives IT notice for Rs.304 crore
Mumbai: Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd has received a tax notice to pay Rs216.03 crore as differential duty and Rs88.08 crore as penalty under the Central Excise Act (CEA) as ordered by the Commissioner of Central Excise (Adjudication).

M&M has informed the BSE that the notice is on the dispute the company had with the Excise department during 1991-96 over classification of Commander range of vehicles as 10-seater under Central Excise Tariff Entry 8702.

"The company does not expect any liability on this account as it believes and has been advised that it had correctly classified the vehicles in question as 10 seaters and appropriate duty has been paid by the company," it said.
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I-T notice of Rs9.15 crore for Aztec Software
Bangalore: Aztec Software has received a notice from the income-tax authorities for payment of Rs9.15 crore as taxes under the Income-Tax Act, 1961 due to the adjustments made to the company's transfer pricing under Section 92C of the I-T Act for the financial year 2001-02.

The company has said that it has a strong case and, hence, would prefer an appeal against the order before the Commissioner (Appeals), the first appellate authority.

A spokesperson declined to comment further citing the company's `silent period' before the announcement of its results.
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Tata Ficosa inaugurate second plant in Pune
Pune: Tata Ficosa Automotive Systems Ltd (TFAS), the 50:50 joint venture between Tata AutoComp Systems Ltd (TACO) and Ficosa International, Spain, on Wednesday inaugurated its additional manufacturing facility in Hinjewadi, near Pune.

Talking to reporters, officials said the current capacity of both the units put together is 1.2 million pieces (the new plant is TFAS' second unit in Pune). Tata Ficosa is planning to ramp up this production capacity to three million pieces within three years.

The new facility will enable the company to supply inner rear-view mirrors to global automotive original equipment manufacturers. The total investment that has gone into these plants is Rs22 crore, officials said. The Hinjewadi plant had already begun to supply inner rear-view mirrors for Toyota Innova. There are plans to bring in more products from the Ficosa product line into the new facility.

Depending on the business that would come in, the company would also think of setting up another unit, mostly in the South. No details of the project were given. Ficosa has deemed the Pune facility as a Centre of Excellence.

Tata Ficosa's customers include Fiat, Ford, General Motors, Hindustan Motors, Honda Siel Cars, Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Motors and Toyota.
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Lionbridge to open new center at Chennai
Waltham: Information technology services provider Lionbridge Technologies Inc has said that it is expanding its global outsourcing services by opening a new center in Chennai, India. The company, which already has an operation in Mumbai, will put about 200 developers, test engineers and project managers at the new site initially.

The Mumbai office has about 1,000 employees at present. The company has about 2,000 employees worldwide. Besides India, Lionbridge has offices in Europe, the United States and in other parts of Asia.

The new Chennai center will also include a testing lab for Lionbridge's VeriTest testing unit, which provides quality assurance and software testing services to enterprise organizations.

Lionbridge provides multilingual IT services which include translating programmes and Web content into a country's native language.
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Rs930 crore ONGC order for L&T
Mumbai: Engineering and construction company Larsen and Toubro has said that it has received an order valued Rs930 crore from Oil and Natural Gas Corporation. The order is part of the Rs1,864-crore offshore renovation contract that was won jointly by L&T and the US-based Global Industries Offshore.

The project involves replacing old submarine pipeline and laying new ones, modification of oil well and process platforms in the western offshore production areas of ONGC, including Bombay High and Heera fields. The entire work has to be completed in three years.

"The first-year schedule is critical as about 45 per cent of the work is to be completed by April 2006," said a company release.

These pipelines and platforms were originally installed by ONGC over the last 30 years and the project is designed to extend the life and reliability of the facilities. ONGC is expected to award another three offshore contracts this year.
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Quarterly Report: Toyota, HM
4,011 Innova units sold in March
Bangalore: Toyota - Kirloskar Motor Company has said that it has sold 4,011 units of its newly launched vehicle Innova in March. It has also sold a total of 43,077 units of all its vehicles in 2004-05.

A press statement from the company said Toyota Innova had notched up bookings of 12,000 within a month of its launch and generated over 30,000 enquiries.

The company sold 1,332 units of Corolla in March, the highest ever sale since its launch in India.

Hindustan Motors Amby sales up 4 percent
Kolkata: Hindustan Motors' sales of Ambassador cars in 2004-05 registered a 4-per cent growth over the previous year. In 2004-05, it sold 12,522 cars compared with 12,046 units in 2003-04.

According to a release, the growth in sales was due to the continuous improvements that have been brought into the product, marketing network and after-sales service.
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Pinnacle Media Center - entertainment tool for PCs
Mumbai: Pinnacle Systems Ltd, a provider of digital editing solutions, has launched Pinnacle Media Center, a solution that transforms ordinary PCs and laptops into entertainment centres, according to a press release.

The Pinnacle Media Center, which comprises the application and media management software of Pinnacle, is priced at Rs 2,990.
"It is like having a music jukebox, DVD player, PVR, photo slideshow projector all built into your PC," said Mr Kishan Sanghi, India-Head, Pinnacle Systems.
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