Finnish telecom network vendor Nokia has appointed Sandeep Girotra as the India head of Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent's combined entity in the country. Girotra will be reporting to chief customer operations officer Ashish Chowdhary. Currently, Girotra is the India head of Nokia Networks and will oversee the combined company's customer operations across India. Girotra's appointment is subject to the successful closing of the public exchange offer for Alcatel-Lucent securities announced on April 15, 2015, which Nokia bought earlier this year for $16.58 billion. It had also appointed Rajiv Suri as its chief executive officer. Girotra joined Nokia Networks in 1996 and has held a number of different roles in India, heading the region since 2011. In 2010 he served as head of sales for Business Solution Networks having been customer team head at Idea Cellular within Nokia Siemens Networks from 2007 to 2009. Financials Nokia’s operating profits increased by 4% year-on-year (YoY) to €475 million in Q3 2015 from €457 million in the same quarter last year. The company had reported an operating profit of €494 million in the previous quarter and net sales of €3.04 billion compared to €3.09 billion in the same quarter last year. Other developments - In August, Nokia sold HERE for €2.8 billion (over $3 billion) to the automotive industry consortium which includes automakers Audi AG, BMW Group and Daimler AG. - In April, Nokia Technologies confirmed that it has no plans to manufacture and/or sell consumer handsets, as had been reported in the media. However, in late June, Nokia CEO Rajeev Suri said that…
