New Delhi (Sputnik) — Chinese telecom giant Huawei will start manufacturing smartphones in India in the first week of October.
The company has formally launched its manufacturing unit in Chennai in collaboration with the leading global electronics manufacturer, Flex India. The plant will have the capacity to make three million units by the end of 2017.
Launched the @HuaweiIndia manufacturing unit in India. This is the 40th mobile manufacturing unit in last 2 years in India. pic.twitter.com/rEw00RuG6Z
— Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) September 23, 2016
"We are working towards making India an electronic manufacturing hub. As India is set to become the second largest smartphone market, our government would like to invite even more businesses to come and manufacture in India,” said Ravi Shankar Prasad, India’s Minister of Information & Technology.
It is expected that following the easing of rules and regulations for Chinese companies and stagnancy in the domestic market, India could attract more Chinese firms to move their manufacturing to India.
“China's low-end manufacturing industry is experiencing hard times as some multinationals move production from China to other Asian countries, India included. India's low labor cost advantage has rung an alarm for China's manufacturing sector. Now it is time for China to map out concrete measures to reduce production costs for manufacturers,” wrote Global Times, a Chinese state publication, only last week.
It is estimated that 220 million mobile phones have been sold in India in 2015-16 alone out of these; 110 million had some form of manufacturing in Indian locations.
