Juniper Expands India Operations

IP networking giant Juniper Networks Inc. (NYSE: JNPR) is ramping up its research and development capabilities at its India Excellence Center (IEC) in Bangalore to bolster its global capabilities but also be prepared for increased local demand. (See Juniper Expands in India.)

In addition to the existing center, which houses 1,800 staff and caters for 300 development partners, Juniper is to open a new site in Bangalore that, during the next two years, will grow to accommodate 750 staff and 450 equipment racks. The IEC offers a full range of support services and development capabilities, including field trials, test engineering, quality assurance and global customer support for 12 hours a day.

"While we cater to both service provider and enterprise segments in India, the growth strategy we follow and will continue to follow is to first validate our own value proposition internally, [and] second to increase the consideration rate so that customers can themselves evaluate Juniper technology against competitors. We are building our ecosystem in India with the objective of doubling our growth rate every year for the next two-to-three years," says Ravi Chauhan, managing director of Juniper Networks, India & SAARC.

"The IEC has significant and innovative contributions to all the products that Juniper ships today," he adds. Juniper notes that the Bangalore IEC played an important role in the design of Juniper's recently launched T4000 Core Router. (See Juniper Launches T4000.)

While Juniper doesn't split out its sales by market, it's believed to have generated revenues of around US$50 million in India in the financial year ending March 2010.

Juniper has three national distributors in India -- Avnet Inc. (NYSE: AVT), Ingram Micro Inc. (NYSE: IM) and Transition Systems Inc.

Why this matters
Juniper, which has IP networking and security products suitable for the carrier and enterprise markets, has a real opportunity to build a meaningful business in India, especially as network operators and large enterprises invest in new networks. Investing in its Bangalore facilities sends a positive signal to the market that Juniper intends to be a major player in India and support its local customers with state-of-the-art facilities.
India's telecoms equipment and devices market, believed to be worth around 1,368 billion rupees ($30 billion) in the financial year ending March 2010 (according to Cybermedia), has been growing rapidly during the past few years, and is expected to keep growing as the carriers build their 3G and broadband wireless access (BWA) networks.

Those networks will increasingly rely on IP routing capabilities, which plays to Juniper's strength, though it faces stiff competition from the likes of Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO), which currently dominates India's router market, and Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. (See Huawei Earmarks $2B for India R&D.)