French company to invest $1.2billion in India for building drone technology
- In Reports
- 06:32 PM, Oct 19, 2021
- Myind Staff
The French aerospace and tech giant Thales company is investing a billion euros (1.2 billion dollars). A significant part of the of this investment will range from manufacturing to traffic management and countering rogue drones.
The company has worked on various co-operative partnerships with public and private sector industries including Samtel, BEL, L&T Technology Services and Reliance Aerostructure Ltd. Thales has also worked as part of Rafale deal between India and France.
“Our solutions allow civil and military aviation authorities to detect — even without data transmission — and verify a drone’s registration number, identify its pilot, and confirm its flight authorisation, all in a few seconds.
The company estimates that the current market will grow at least 6 times in the next 5-8 years.
“By the same time, to cope with unexpected or non-registered drones, detection and classification are the first steps before engaging a graduated response,” Ashish Saraf, Thales India VP & country director, told TOI.
"Our solutions like remote ID for drones allow us to do much more in this space including integration with unmanned traffic management solutions. Thales is world leader in this space and we are looking at drone opportunities both in civilian and defence markets," said Saraf.
Earlier, Thales CEO Patrice Caine in an interview said, “We look at India as a top country; not just as a market but also as an export hub. We have sourced and supplied more and more from India as it has a good ecosystem. We intend to grow it as part of our global supply chain,” Caine told Business Line.
He also added that Thales has completed €500 million worth of local sourcing from India.
“We have doubled our turnover from India in the past three years. I see growth potential in defence and aerospace. We also find excellent competencies in India in terms of talent,” Caine said.
Image Courtesy: Business line
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