Mumbai: Nokia, the global leader in mobile handsets, mobile email and network security, today announced that it will set up its mobile devices manufacturing facility for mobile devices at Chennai. The manufacturing unit in Chennai will be Nokia's tenth mobile device production facility globally. Nokia anticipates investing an estimated $100 to $150 million in the Chennai production plant.

"Establishing a new factory in India is an important step in the continuous development of our global manufacturing network. We selected Chennai to be the location for the factory because of the availability of skilled labour, friendly business environment, support from the state government, good logistics connections and overall cost-efficiency," said Pekka Ala-Pietilä, president, Nokia.

The construction work at the Nokia factory site will start in April and production is expected to begin in the first half of 2006. Nokia foresees ramping up the factory gradually and the work force reaching approximately 2,000 employees when production is full scale.

Mobile penetration in Asia Pacific is expected to be a major contributor to the global mobile subscriber base surpassing the two-billion mark by the end of 2005.

In India, Nokia has emerged the market leader in mobile devices and was recently recognised as the Brand of the year by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) as well as the most respected consumer durables company by the BusinessWorld magazine.