Agere Systems announced recently that it has appointed one of its sales leaders, John Cummins, as vice president, Agere Systems, China.

In this newly created position, Cummins will spearhead the company's efforts to address growth opportunities and strengthen customer relationships in China, which represents an increasingly important market for Agere.

Cummins will be based in Shanghai, China, and will report to Ahmed Nawaz, executive vice president, worldwide sales for Agere. Cummins and his team complement the strong presence that Agere already has in the Asia/Pacific region. The company has assembly and test facilities in Singapore and Bangkok, Thailand; a joint venture with Chartered Semiconductor in Singapore; design centers in Bangalore, India, Shanghai and Singapore; and sales offices across the region. Agere also recently established a new technical support center in Shanghai specifically to customize mobile handset solutions for the growing Asian marketplace and provide related hardware, software and systems support to customers within the region. In addition, the company has established a design center in Australia to develop new solutions for the growing 3G handset market. Many of Agere's major networking equipment, mobile terminal and PC customers are located in China and the Asia/Pacific region.