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Netgear has announced plans to have an Indian manufacturing unit, but no
deadline has been set yet. The main reason why the vendor is delaying this
decision is because of the lack of appropriate infrastructure in the country,
revealed Patrick Lo, Chairman and CEO, Netgear Inc in an exclusive chat with DQ
Channels.
“We want to have a manufacturing unit in India. But it has to be in place
with a good airport and seaport. As yet we can't identify one such city in
India, which will be viable for us,” he said.
On an average, Netgear ships around two lakh products monthly from its
manufacturing unit in China. Of this, 30 percent are shipped by sea, while the
rest are flown to the different geographies. “Our manufacturing units do not
cater to the local geography but ship to the entire world. So we need to be sure
that India can handle this bandwidth before we invest in a plant here,” Lo
added.
In the meantime, the company would rather invest more on improving its
technical team here, which will cater to the service needs of its english-speaking
customers all over the world. It will also have a software development center
keeping in mind the large base of software professionals in India. Besides this,
it will also open up three more offices in Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad.
When Netgear started its Indian operations four years ago, it registered a
350 percent growth. This is not surprising since it was the first year of its
business and it started from ground zero. However, the company managed to keep
its growth rate in the above 100 percent league and last year it grew by 130
percent.
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| Patrick Lo: “Netgear
ships around two lakh products monthly from its Chinese factory. Of this, 30
percent is shipped, while the rest are flown out” |
Lo credits the Indian channel network and product portfolio for this bull run
and is confident of maintaining this growth pace for the next three years.
Currently, in India the company has Ingram Micro, Rashi Peripherals and
Cyberstar as its national distis. It has 20 VARs who cater to over 700 partners
in 20-odd cities.
Talking about localized products for India, he admitted that Netgear's Skype
Wi-Fi phone did not take off very well in India. “The high price of the product
could be a reason behind this,” Lo added.
“We will see if we can make the product more economical and strip off some of
the features that are not needed by the Indian market and then re-launch the
product,” Lo stated. Page(s) 1
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