Siemens Investing in Brazil

Siemens mobile is investing US$40 million this year in the production and development of mobile phones, cordless phones and wireless modules in Brazil. Siemens in Brazil will triple its production capacity by the first quarter of 2005 and plans, still in this year, to export mobile phones and cordless phones worth more than US$50 million to Latin America. In addition, the company wants to export telecommunication software worth more than US$80 million over the next years to the region.

With the construction of a new factory in Manaus, Siemens will triple the production capacity for mobile phones, cordless phones and wireless modules in Brazil, and is launching regional export business in Latin America. At the same time, the company's research and development center for telecommunication software (for mobile phones and mobile infrastructure) will also be enlarged.

"After focusing last year on the Brazilian market and its GSM boom, we will now serve the various markets in the region from Brazil", said Joe Kaeser, Chief Financial Officer and Board Member of Siemens mobile. "As the clear market leader for GSM mobile phones in Brazil, we want to now extend this success story further to cover the whole of Latin America. We will achieve this through considerable expansion of our local production and innovations from local research and development. This will allow us to respond even quicker to the needs of this growth region."

Alongside production of mobile infrastructure in Curitiba in the south of Brazil, Siemens has been producing GSM mobile phones in Manaus/Amazonas since the start of 2002. Production has more than tripled within two years. In the summer of 2003, following Germany, Denmark, China and the USA, the fifth R&D site for software in the mobile phone sector was set up in Brazil. At the same time, the company started production of digital cordless phones for Latin America - the first time that Gigasets were produced outside of Germany. In the fall of 2003, Siemens began production of wireless modules in Manaus, hence becoming the first manufacturer to produce wireless modules directly in Brazil for machine-to-machine communication, in fleet management, transport monitoring systems, the automotive sector and house surveillance."

Posted to the site on 3rd March 2004