CHENNAI, India -- The world leader in mobile communications today inaugurated its manufacturing facility in Sriperumbudur, Chennai, India. Present at the inauguration, were the Honorable Prime Minister of Finland, Mr. Matti Vanhanen, Minister of Transport and Communications, Susanna Huovinen, Honorable Governor of Tamil Nadu, Shri Surjit Singh Barnala, Secretary to the Government of India and Chairman of Telecom Commission, Dr J.S Sarma, and senior Nokia executives including Mr. Jorma Ollila, Chairman & CEO and Mr. Robert Andersson, Executive Vice President, Customer & Market Operations, amongst others. The manufacturing facility in Chennai is Nokia's fifteenth manufacturing facility globally. Nokia is the only company in India whose facility manufactures both mobile devices and network infrastructure equipment.

Nokia commenced commercial production of mobile handsets at its India factory on the 2nd of January 2006 and has achieved the milestone of manufacturing over one million handsets in India to-date. The Chennai manufacturing facility currently employs 1100 people and expects to significantly expand its work force in India over time.

Speaking at the inauguration ceremony, Mr. Jorma Ollila, Chairman & CEO of Nokia said, "India is amongst the top 5 telecom markets in the world. Setting up this manufacturing facility in India reiterates our long term commitment to the Indian market. We are proud to have only taken 23 weeks from the time we started construction to rolling out the first products at this state-of-the-art manufacturing facility. Chennai is a great location with excellent state and central government support, availability of skilled labor and a conducive business environment. I am confident that our manufacturing facility in Chennai will enable us to reduce our time to market and better respond to our customer requirements in this market and around the region. "

Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK)