IBM to triple India investment to $6b

NEW DELHI -- IBM Corp. plans to triple its investment in India to $6 billion over the next three years to take advantage of the country's lower-cost labor and diverse engineering skills for technology services customers around the world.

Chairman and chief executive Sam Palmisano said yesterday the investment will expand the software, services, and customer-support work IBM does in India, while also funding new service delivery centers in Bangalore and a telecommunications research facility in New Delhi.

Palmisano said IBM would increase its work force in India but he was not specific.

In the past three years, the company has invested more than $2 billion in India and increased staff there from 9,000 to 43,000, helped by the estimated $150 million acquisition of Indian back-office outsourcing provider Daksh eServices.

Now Big Blue employs more people in India than any other foreign company. And India is IBM's second-largest base of operations, trailing only the United States, which has 125,000 of IBM's 330,000 people.