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FY 07 saw more restructuring at Intel. It revamped its India sales for a regional focus, with a business head for each of three regions: the north and east (including Bangladesh), west, and south (including Sri Lanka).

India is one of the few growth markets for Intel, whose Apac revenues declined 10%, pushing down global revenues 9%, as chip prices fell. Mobility saved the day in India: laptops growth, and a mobile phone boom (Intel sells flash memory).

Following various exits from Intel in 2005, last year too saw a few: former MD Amar Babu left to join Idea Cellular, and sales head GB Kumar joined Cisco. Old Intel hand Ramamurthy Sivakumar came in from USA into the South Asia MD role; hes based in Delhi.

Recovering from Whitefield (the made-in-India processor project was killed after being way behind schedule), Intels India Development Centre worked on other platforms including Napa SFF, Quad Core, Santa Rosa and the Classmate PC; it also played a key role in the development of the Tera low-power super-chip. Intel says over $1.7 billion has been invested in India to date (on salaries and infrastructure), and that IIDC has had over 800 invention disclosures and filed 50 patents to date.

In the year ahead Intel India intends to focus on mobile Internet devices: it launched the Ultra Mobile platform with the A100 series processors in early 2007. With the mobile boom in India, Intel is hoping that its fortunes take off in this part of the market. DQ

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