US' Stryker to expand sales op to 15 cities in India

New Delhi, Mar 26: United States-based medical technology company Stryker Corporation is betting big on India with huge expansion plans, including an increase in its sales and service operations to over 15 cities by the end of this year.

The company also plans to ''substantially'' ramp up the headcount at its just-launched global technology centre at Gurgaon from the present 40.

The targeted areas include Bangalore, Kanpur, Hyderabad, Coimbatore, Kochi, Bhubaneshwar, Patna and Guwahati. The company, at present, has sales offices and service centers in the four metros.

''India is a key market for us and we expect there will be substantial growth here,'' Mr Yashdeep Kumar, Director of Technology Centre at Gurgaon told UNI.

Mr Kumar did not deny additional technology centres coming up in the country and the region.

He expects a substantial part of the company's investment on research and development to come to India with the Gurgaon center, Stryker's first in Asia Pacific, in place.

Stryker invested over 300 million dollars for global research and development, up by 14 per cent from the previous year's outlay.

A huge portion of the expenditure at present goes to the US and western Europe.

''The opening of the centre lays the ground to enable more of the investment to come to India,'' Mr Kumar said.

The centre will focus on next generation technologies and high-end products. It will function as a global talent hub for Stryker operations across the world.

It will be the company's first research and development centre to conduct product development across all nine categories that it operates.

Stryker currently conducts research in 20 centres globally.

Inaugurating the hub, Stryker CEO and President Stephen P Macmillan said, the addressable medical device market in India is valued at over 160 million dollars and growing rapidly.

''India was the obvious choice for setting up the technology centre by virtue of the technical expertise and skill available, which will enable discovery of technology solutions at a fast pace.'' Stryker was incorporated in India in 2001.

UNI