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    Nokia India’s head of Bharti Airtel global account Tejinder Kalra resigns

    Synopsis

    Nokia’s gears power Airtel’s mobile broadband networks in 13 circles across India, according to industry estimates.

    ET Bureau
    KOLKATA: Nokia India’s head of Bharti Airtel global account Tejinder Kalra has submitted his resignation and the Finnish gearmaker will shortly name Jaideep Minocha as his successor, two people aware of the development said.

    Minocha, who now heads Nokia’s global sales support centre in India, will oversee the deployment of the company’s 3G and 4G network gear in the Sunil Mittal-led mobile operator’s networks in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Africa markets, the people cited earlier told ET.

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    Minocha will report to Nokia's India market head Sandeep Girotra.

    Nokia’s gears power Airtel’s mobile broadband networks in 13 circles across India, according to industry estimates.

    Minocha, who steps into his new role next month, will also be responsible for overseeing the company’s services management, operational support, network planning, systems integration and supervision to Bharti Airtel, said one of the persons cited earlier.

    Nokia India declined to comment on the matter.

    Nokia has separate account heads for its big telecom clients in the country, but only its global account head for Airtel is based in India. For instance, the company’s global account head for Vodafone, including its Indian operation, is based in Europe, said one of the persons cited.

    Following the recent global integration of Nokia and Alcatel Lucent, the merged Nokia entity expects to earn top dollars from incumbent carrier clients in India, such as Airtel, who are stepping up capex spends on fast mobile broadband networks before Reliance Jio Infocomm launches later this year.

    Bharti Airtel, which is among Nokia’s biggest clients, is now a pan-India 4G player.

    Managing director Gopal Vittal recently said Airtel invested over Rs 15,000 crore in FY16 towards countrywide deployment of over 88,000 sites, which is the largest network deployment anywhere in the world outside of China, and reinforced the company’s focus on building a future-ready network.
    The Economic Times

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