Disengaging from its OEM arrangement with Nokia Oy, Philips Electronics NV has decided to turn its factory in Le Mans into its worldwide centre for manufacturing its own 2 Watt and 8 Watt cellular phones, Les Echos reports. For the moment our market share is only a few percentage points, but we have set the bar we want to scale very high. We want to become a heavyweight in the market in the future, said an unidentified company executive. Le Mans will be the worldwide centre for personal communication terminals, but this will not prevent us from producing them in other factories worldwide. The paper said that Francois Fillon, the Posts, Telecommunications & Space minister, and Francois Mauduit, chief executive, Philips France are expected to announce the project officially in the next month or so. The report cites local sources that estimate the project to involve an investment of about $160m and say it should create 800 jobs. Already, says the paper, 300 jobs were created last summer, bringing the staff of the facility to 1,300. Groupe Speciale Mobile digital cellular phone production has already begun at the factory, the paper reported, even though its financing has not yet been fully secured. Part of that will be public, since Philips will claim state aid in the form of regional grants and a bonus for favouring a provincial region.
