Altera Corporation has announced the opening of its sales office in Bangalore. The company has 14,000 customers across the world to whom it provides programmable solutions. Though the company has 1,885 employees globally, in Bangalore it plans to start with two employees, Wai-Leng Cheong the regional sales manager, and a customer service person.

Altera is planning to move into the market through two distributors in India, Arrow Electronics India, which has been its channel partner for the last seven years, and Achieva with whom it has partnered with for the last one year. Altera has three major partners, iWave, Dexcel and Spectrum under its ACAP (Altera Consultants Alliance Programme) and eight partners in Asia Pacific region.

The company had sales of $839 million in 2001, of which the Asia Pacific region accounted for $107 million. When the fourth quarter of 2002 clocked a revenue of $170.9 million, the third quarter had $180.1 million. The company claims to have 45 percent market share in CPLD.

“The digital consumer segment is the real growth area for us. We are also looking at the infotainment market in the region,” said Ben Lee, vice president of sales for Asia Pacific at Altera. “We expect a 25-30 percent growth if the industry regains and makes a come back in the next year,” added Lee.