Mittal with Goujard in Delhi on Friday. (PTI)

New Delhi, Feb. 20: Bharti Teletech, the leading fixed-line phone manufacturer in India, today forged a strategic alliance with Atlinks, a subsidiary of Thomson, to manufacture fixed-line phones for the foreign partner at its facility in Punjab.

Under the two-pronged alliance, Bharti Teletech, a Bharti group company, will manufacture fixed-line phones for Atlinks for global exports.

Bharti Teletech will also become the sole marketing and distribution company for Atlinks in India and neighbouring countries and will start selling GE-branded telephones designed and manufactured by Atlinks.

Initially, six models from the GE stable with prices ranging from Rs 495 to Rs 2,595 will be manufactured. They will be available in 20 cities across the country to begin with and extended to all cities in a phased manner.

Atlinks is a leading supplier of in-home and office telephony. The company designs, manufactures and markets products branded General Electric (GE), Alcatel, RCA and Thomson in the US, Latin America, Asia, Africa, West Asia and Europe. General Electric and Alcatel own the GE and Alcatel brands respectively.

Rakesh Bharti Mittal, vice-chairman and managing director of Bharti Teletech, said, “India is fast emerging as a strong manufacturing base for the world economy. This has been because of companies like Bharti Teletech going that extra length to follow global accepted quality standards in design and manufacture. The challenge now is to reach a critical mass in the shortest possible time.”

To begin with, Bharti Teletech plans to export one million GE phones in the next two years. These phones will be manufactured at Bharti Teletech’s Ludhiana plant. The marketing and distribution tie-up for GE phones extends to Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Maldives apart from India.

Didier Goujard, managing director of Atlinks, said, “I am confident that the alliance would be mutually beneficial for both the companies and the future would see us growing and strengthening this strategic alliance.”