NEW DELHI: US-based telecom gear maker Ciena’s chief executive officer Gary Smith said that the company has benefitted from the absence of Huawei and ZTE in the Indian 5G network rollout as telcos moved away quickly from involving Chinese vendors.

“…we’ve benefited from that. I wouldn’t deny that. The thing about India is that they move very quickly. If you contrast that with our experience in Europe…Europe also wants to move away, but they’re not ripping and replacing, they’re sort of evolving the way India has been a little faster in that. That has certainly helped. It opens up some other opportunities for us,” the top executive told ET in an interaction.

Smith said that the structure of the Indian telecom market has now settled down and the company is “very bullish” with growth opportunities.

“It’s the fastest growing internet market in the world and all the demographics around it are super positive. We are very bullish on the Indian market both in terms of us in the market, and also in terms of our team. We now have 2500 people across 3-4 locations in India,” he added.

Ciena increased its manpower in India by 10% last year and is still recruiting more engineers to support its research and development (R&D) efforts. “We are recruiting pretty aggressively.”

The company is also looking at exporting locally manufactured switching and routing from its Chennai facility in partnership with Flex. The US-based telecom gear maker expects to deliver the first of its made-in-India switching and routing to customers in the coming months.

It will invest $50- $100 million over the next three to four years to locally design and manufacture equipment for domestic consumption and for exports.

“We’re beginning to now start some manufacturing as a part of the build in India and eventually that might be not just the Indian market, but elsewhere to export out with the great long-term growth in India,” he added.

Smith said that having a manufacturing facility in India gives Ciena more flexibility in its global supply chain, which experiment turmoil over the last couple of years. “Having multiple places to manufacture and source gives control, visibility, and resilience on a global basis. India is a very much part of our global supply chain,” he added.

“India kind of skipped out the cycle and went straight to the mobile broadband. And, 5G just takes things to the next level.

The company is also positive about Vodafone Idea’s future in India with the Indian government becoming the single largest shareholder in the telecom operator.

“…with the agreement VIL reached with the government is creating a different model for them. I’m sure they’re growing in confidence around stability and also the investments that are going to come towards them,” Jamie Jefferies, VP and GM, International, Ciena, told ET.

Smith said that India now has a healthy ecosystem with a number of fiber broadband providers, webscale companie and telecom operators. “Cable landing folks are here and content is also expanding very aggressively. The Indian market is a pretty healthy ecosystem generally compared to Europe,” he said, adding that the market has competition and healthy companies.

5G network densification and network rollout along with content delivery companies’ expansion into India will drive growth for the company, executives said.

“India as a prime location with submarine cables traversing the world…landing and traversing the country…it is a huge amount of opportunity here, and then obviously, the size of the scale of the country itself presents a huge opportunity,” Jefferies said.

The company will also continue its focus on the government sector. “The government and defense are a key part of our strategy to grow business,” Smith said.

India grew 150% last year and is coming back on track for Ciena with telcos quickly modernizing and expanding their 5G networks. “ our numbers went down due to Covid and the AGR issue but it’s shooting back up. Our guidance for the year is 20-22% growth and India will grow faster than that with 5G and other dynamics.