Finland-based company Nokia moves all its operations on the local market under the same roof in Timisoara, western Romania. It’s mainly about Alcatel-Lucent Romania operations, the French telecomms equipment group which was taken over following a EUR15.6 billion merger.
“The investment is significant. There will be moved the equipment and the employees. We will have also office space in additional buildings. By the end of this year, about half of the teams will be moved to the new location,” Raoul Ros, Country Senior Officer at Nokia Romania said in a press conference on Tuesday.
Thus, 1,600 employees, of which about half are involved in research and development, and 3,000 square meters of laboratory equipment will reach the new location by the end of next year.
Only about 50 employees of current Nokia Romania are “inherited” from Nokia, the rest of them coming from Alcatel-Lucent operations.
“For the new Nokia, Romania represents a strategic site, an important location, where big things happen,” Ros stressed.
On this occasion, Ros announced that Nokia is demonstrating some of its latest innovations in the areas of 5G networks, IoT, cloud solutions, smart city at the Innovation Days event in Bucharest. The company is looking at how service providers can take advantage of new technologies and to enable new IoT business models.
During the Innovation Days, the company showcases solutions and technologies that solve operator challenges and expand human possibilities. Nokia is the first to run 5G radio access on a commercially available base station. Nokia’s new 5G-ready AirScale product supports any technology, from 2G through LTE Advance Pro and 5G when it arrives. AirScale replacing the Nokia Flexi Base Sation also uses 60 percent less energy than the Flexi.
Nokia has hired more than 100 people last year in Romania and currently has 1,600 employees and 150 students in internships. Another 250 jobs are provided by sub-contractors. Nokia Romania has close partnerships with seven schools in Romania, including universities in Timisoara and Bucharest.