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HELSINKI -- Elcoteq, Europe's largest EMS company, is in negotiations with workers from several of its Finland plants over possible layoffs.

Elcoteq met this week with personnel representatives of its Lohja manufacturing plant to discuss layoffs that would affect, per company estimates, at most 120 workers, or 13.7% of Elcoteq's Finnish workforce.

BANGALORE – India’s embryonic EMS sector is preparing for a breakout, based on recent forecasts from various market watchers.

The Indian EMS industry will be worth $4 billion by 2010, growing over 30% annually, says the Electronics Component Industries Association (Elcina), a group of some 280 domestic electronics manufacturers.

Research firm iSuppli pegs the market at somewhat smaller, estimating contract assembly in India will increase 21% each year to $2.03 billion in 2009, from $935 million last year.

Among the EMS firms that are growing in India are Jabil Circuit and Celestica, which are acquiring Indian companies, and Hon Hai, which recently committed $110 million in investments over the next five years.

Driving investment are the telecom and computing sectors.

The number of telephone users is forecast to rise to 22 per 1000 by end 2007, from the current level of nine per 1000.

Also, computer peripherals are forecast to grow 23% annually through 2009.

Consumer electronics are expected to rise 18% per year during that span.

FRAMINGHAM, MA -- Worldwide PC shipments are expected to grow 10.5% this year, boosted by sales to the Asia-Pacific region, said research firm IDC. Meanwhile, Gartner Group forecast a 10.7% rise in shipments.

Both firms estimate PC shipments grew more than 15% last year.

Mike Buetow writes about IBM's new collaborative sales, services and marketing strategy at http://circuitsassembly.com/blog/.

CHENNAI, India -- Nokia inaugurated its manufacturing facility in Sriperumbudur, Chennai, part of a planned $150 million investment in India.

Nokia began commercial production of mobile handsets at the factory on Jan. 2, and has built more than one million handsets there to-date.

SAN JOSE -- Sales of communications equipment sales reached $309 billion in 2005, topping the $300 billion mark for the first time, research firm Electronic Trend Publications reported, led by sales of cellular handsets.

Through 2010, outsourced manufacturing will grow nearly twice as fast as in-house manufacturing, ETP said. "Outsourcing will prove to be most popular for commodity and high-volume products for which cost reduction and time to market are important. Demand for in-house production of communications products will remain solid but uninspired, and dominated by Asian OEMs that prefer not to subcontract."