tech2 News Staff

Telecom equipment maker, Ericsson, now has more employees in India than in any other country, reveals the company’s Facts and Figures web page. With 17,991 personnel in India, it has even surpassed its headcount of 17,545 in its home base of Sweden.

Overall, Ericsson has 1,11,383 employees across the world. It has the least number of employees around 2,094 in Sub Saharan Africa. The gender breakdown as per December 2013 shows that 80 percent of the company's employees are male.

According to a report by The Times of India, most of Ericsson's employees in India are engineers, while others work in research and development in Gurgaon, Chennai and Bangalore. They work in areas such as revenue management, internet protocol, networking, modems and big data, adds the report.

Besides the above mentioned cities, Ericsson also has a manufacturing unit in Jaipur. The manufacturing centre is known to build microwave products related to GSM, CDMA and third-generation telecom technologies.

Ericsson is believed to be the world’s largest telecom equipment maker and has begun ramping up operations in India in the bid to gain 4G network rollout contracts. Telecom companies are expected to begin giving 4G contracts over the next six to twelve months.

Needless to say, India is also one of the fastest growing smartphone markets in the world with a lot of engineering talent. This could be another reason why Ericsson’s considering to make the place its manufacturing hub.