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Four major domestic brands are joining hands to set up units at the country’s first phone manufacturing hub – Sri Venkateshwara Mobile and Electronics Manufacturing Cluster – coming up in Tirupati.
Micromax, Celkon, Karbonn and Lava will invest ₹2,000 crore in phases in the 120-acre hub located near Renigunta airport. Indian companies account for 45 per cent of the 24 crore phones sold in the country.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lay the foundation stone for the hub on Thursday. The hub, which is expected to commence production in the next six months, would have an aggregated capacity of 7 crore smart phones a year.
The hub will also house all the players in the ecosystem that includes manufacturers of earphones and adopters.
“The hub would provide 45,000 direct and indirect jobs when fully completed in the next two years. A couple of Chinese firms Vikin Communications and Gaungdong Wivtak Technology too are setting up units to support the mobile manufacturers,” Celkon Mobiles Chairman and Managing Director Y Guru told BusinessLine .
“Mobile phone manufacturing in 2015-16 will grow by more than 110 per cent compared with 2014-15. The Tirupati hub will create more than 10,000 jobs within a year and we expect this hub to contribute at least 5 per cent of our all-India target to create 15 lakh jobs by the year 2019,” said Pankaj Mohindroo, National President of Indian Cellular Association (ICA).
The ICA had been scouting for a location to set up the hub and had been in talks with various State governments.
Mohindroo, who is also the Chairman of Fast Track Task Force (FTTF), set up by the Centre to promote mobile handset manufacturing eco-system in India, said suitable regulatory interventions and proactive support provided by Andhra Pradesh clinched ICA’s decision in favour of Tirupati.
Sudhir Hasija, Chairman of Karbonn Mobiles, has said that the company would invest ₹250 crore to set up 30 lines, each having a capacity to produce 2,500 smart phones in a single shift.
“It is not an assembly facility. We are manufacturing the complete phone. In the first phase, we will build 3 lakh sq ft space,” he said.
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