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The heat and humidity of a Monday afternoon did not deter hundreds of young job seekers from lining up at the manufacturing plant of Flex (formerly Flextronics) in Sriperumbudur, to the west of Chennai.
Many of them who lost their jobs at Nokia, Foxconn, Jabil and BYD, in the same area, now hope they will succeed in getting into the $26-billion Flex.
It is now the largest mobile phone manufacturer and one of the largest electronics manufacturing service providers in the region.
Nokia SEZ used to produce nearly a tenth of the world’s mobile phones till 2012. But, in a matter of two years, the Nokia plant was shut down. And, its vendors like Foxconn too closed down their units.
The Singapore-based Flex hopes to fill the vacuum created by Nokia in mobile manufacturing. It is an international supply chain solutions company that offers design, manufacturing, distribution and aftermarket services to original equipment manufacturers.
“We roll out a mobile phone every 15 seconds. We may not become the size of Nokia but will certainly be one of the largest mobile manufacturers in this region. We are making Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of ‘Make in India’ a reality,” said Sekaran Letchumanan, Head, Flex Chennai Industrial Park.
Flex manufactures Motorola’s Moto E, G and Lenovo K3 phones for the domestic market. Since July the company has produced over one lakh phones for Motorola.
Other than mobile phones, Flex manufactures products such as mobile chargers, set-top-boxes and LED bulbs at the plant, he said.
New comers On Monday, nearly 100 new comers, including many women, entered the plant on their second day of induction. “I was a bit hesitant to join Flex initially. However, looking at my friend’s success, I decided to join,” said Kalaivani (name changed), 20, from a nearby village.
And, Flex is ready to accommodate many employees to meet its expansion plans. In the next one year, it will recruit nearly 4,000 employees for the plant to take the total strength to nearly 8,000, said Letchumanan.
“There was no effect on us due to Nokia’s closure,” he said.
DTA advantage The Flex plant’s expansion has been possible due to the domestic tariff area (DTA) licence that it got a year back. The plant was started in 2001 as a Special Economic Zone. The DTA status allowed it sell products for the domestic market as opposed to just exporting them.
After getting the DTA licence, Flex split the plant into SEZ and DTA within the same campus with no overlap between the two.
Of the total 645,000 sq ft facility, nearly 250,000 sq ft has been earmarked for DTA space.
While employees can be interchanged between the two, the products manufactured are kept separate.
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