Amid the ongoing controversy over outsourcing to India, Atlinks has entered into an alliance with Bharti Teletech as part of which the latter would manufacture fixed line phones for Atlinks for global exports.

"The alliance involves outsourcing of GE-branded phones (for Atlinks, a subsidiary of Thomson) to be manufactured by Bharti," Rakesh Bharti Mittal, vice chairman and managing director of Bharti Teletech, a fixed line phone manufacturing arm of Bharti Group, said.

Outsourcing and India: Complete Coverage

Bharti would also become the sole marketing and distribution company for Atlinks in India and neighbouring countries like Nepal, Srilanka, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Maldives.

To begin with Bharti Teletech plans to export one million GE phones in the next two years, Mittal said adding that these phones would be manufactured at Bharti's plant in Ludhiana, which is already manufacturing phones for global market.

Mittal also announced that the company would invest upto one million dollar for new products in company's own brand – Beetel -- during the next financial year and would look at undertaking capacity expansion in 2005-06 to meet the targets.

On the distribution side, Bharti has fixed an ambitious target to sell 200,000 units of GE phones in India in the first year.