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N. Ramakrishnan

Setting up 11,000-sq.m. plant at Sriperumbudur in Nokia suppliers' park

Chennai , Sept. 9

Salcomp Manufacturing India Pvt Ltd, a subsidiary of the Finnish mobile charger manufacturer Salcomp Plc, will employ over 2,500 people once its plant is in full operation.

The company is setting up a 11,000-sq.m. plant at Sriperumbudur, near here, within the Nokia suppliers' park. It will break ground for the plant on Monday with production scheduled to begin in the first half of 2007.

According to Mr Arto Makela, Director - India Operations, Salcomp Manufacturing India, the company has started the recruitment process. It will first recruit managers and then go in for workers in the production process, who would be candidates with diploma engineering qualification.

The company will send some employees for training to Salcomp's plant in China to help them understand the manufacturing process. Salcomp has plants in Brazil and China.

It is also looking to localise the components that go into the mobile charger, considered a safety device.

It is evaluating some key component suppliers in India and some of Salcomp's suppliers in China are also likely to set up facilities near its Chennai plant, according to Mr Makela. Initially, all the components will be imported.

Salcomp has been working with a supplier for transformers in Bangalore since 1998, Mr Makela said, declining to divulge the company's name.

The company has awarded the construction of the plant to Leighton Contractors (India) Pvt Ltd, a subsidiary of Leighton Holdings of Australia. Leighton has built Nokia's plant in Sriperumbudur.

In one go

A press release on Salcomp's Web site says that the company has decided to increase the investment in the plant to have a larger facility in one go. Initially, the plant was to come in two phases with the investment also staggered.

According to the release, the company will invest 9 million now (about Rs 55 crore) against 6 million (about 35 crore) planned earlier. It has now decided to carry out both phases simultaneously "as a result of stronger than earlier expected growth in the global mobile phone market." The plant will serve Salcomp's customers worldwide and also enable the company to balance its global production and logistics operations.

"Salcomp is already one of the biggest charger suppliers in the Indian markets. Until now, the products delivered to India have been manufactured in China," information on the site says. The company estimates that in the next four years the plant's first stage capacity will be raised to approximately 100 million chargers a year, according to information on the site.

Mr Makela said Salcomp's Chennai plant was committed to meeting Nokia's requirement of chargers. However, globally it supplied chargers to other leading mobile handset manufacturers such as Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Siemens BenQ, LG and Samsung, and could do the same in India.

Mr Makela, who worked in Salcomp's China plant before coming to India, said the Chennai plant's area would be one-third of the production plant in China.

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