Philips to invest 250 million euros in newly christened NXP India

Sufia Tippu
Tuesday, 05 September 2006 15:46

IT Industry - Market

NXP Semiconductors, formerly Philips Semiconductors, plans to invest 250 million euros over the next five years in its India operations. This will be channeled into its sales and R&D division.

Philips divested from its semiconductor business in August 2006 with leading private equity firms -- Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co (KKR), Bain Capital, Silver Lake Partners, Apax Partners and AlpInvest Partners NV taking an 80.1% stake in the entity valued at 8.3 billion euros. The rest (19.9%) is being held by Philips.

The semiconductor business of Philips Electronics will be renamed NXP after its spin-off from the Dutch electronics conglomerate, Philips CEO Frans van Houten said in a statement in Berlin on Sept 1 2006. The NXP acronym stands for “Next Experience”.

In India, NXP Semiconductors India has been formed with the semiconductor division of Philips Electronics India and the software arm of the Dutch giant Philips Innovation.

Philips Electronics India CEO K Ramachandran said the NXP India will become operational from the first week of October this year. “NXP Semiconductor India would be headquartered in Bangalore and would invest 5 million euros in building a new campus which would have 700 engineers,” he said.

The new facility will be the second largest R&D centre for NXP worldwide.

NXP India MD Rajeev Mehtani said it will hire 100-150 engineers every year as it has been doing for the last three years. “We would be focusing on four key technology areas — digital home, mobile platform, RFID and multi functional devices. Although the semiconductor market in India is just 1 to1.5% of the global market, we are going to see a robust growth going forward,” he said.

Compared to the semiconductor market in China (the country to which India is often compared) which today stands at $75 billion the Indian semiconductor market is still comparatively small at $1.5 billion.

On the low-cost mobile handset based on its Nexperia mobile platform, NXP officials said that they are in talks with various players and are expected to come out with a model soon with a price tag of $ 25-30. “Our lo-cost chipset solution is already being used by vendors across the globe,” said Ashok Chandak, sales and marketing director, NXP Semiconductors India.

Globally NXP has 37,000 people in 20 countries with 10 wafer fab plants and eight test and assembly plants. It posted revenues of 4.77 billion euros for 2005 calendar year.