Thales expects to increase its India turnover to 500 M Euros

Bangalore, Feb 8 (UNI) The software development centre of the French electronics major Thales, located in Chennai, is busy coding complex avionics systems and contributing to inflight entertainment requirements for Indian and foreign airliners.

Thales, which had a significant presence at Aero India 2007, aimed at enhancing its present strength of 300 at the Chennai centre to over 1,000 in the long run and a full-fledged software R and D centre of its own right was also planned, Company Country Director Francois Dupont told newspersons at the aero show today.

''Currently, we have a revenue of around 250 million Euros, this will increase to 300 million Euros in 2007 and our ultimate aim is to touch 500 million Euros,'' he added.

Mr Dupont said that in August last year, the company set up a joint venture with Rolta to develop solutions for domestic and homeland security. Thales had a 49 per cent share in the new firm.

Referring to its academic initiative in India, he said the Thales Academia programme had given education grant to 15 students in 2007 from six last year. Each student would get a grant of 10,000 Euros. The aim was to attract the world's best talent and enable them to complete their education in France's higher education establishments.

UNI