Home grown mobile handset maker Lava International is planning to ramp-up its existing production facility in the country.
The company is planning to bring on stream its second assembly unit in Noida, around March next year, at an estimated cost of ₹50 crore. The plant, having a capacity of 1.5 million units, will cater to feature phones.
The upcoming second phase will have the capability to assemble smartphones too, if required. Of the 2.3 million (23 lakhs) handsets sold by the company in September, nearly 1.7 million (17 lakhs) were feature phones, the remaining (0.6 million or 6 lakh) being smartphones.
“The second phase will be ready by March 2016 and will cater to feature phone assembly. However, if required, it can be leveraged to manufacture smart-phones also,” he told BusinessLine .
The handset vendor, that reported a turnover of ₹7,000 crore last fiscal and owns both Lava and Xolo brands, is planning to invest in setting up two “greenfield” manufacturing facilities in the country.
Capex According to Agarwal, the two manufacturing units – one each in North India and South India – will come up in addition to its existing Noida facility.
A cap-ex of ₹2,615 crore has been earmarked, which includes setting up of new facilities and ramping up of existing ones.
“The States have not yet been finalised. By next month (November) we hope to zero in on them,” he said.
Exports Investments will be a mix of internal accruals and other sources. However, the “other sources” – that include bank loans and so on – have not yet been finalised.
Amongst the top five Indian handset vendors with a 10 per cent market share, Lava has been importing feature phones from China; while smart-phones are mostly assembled here. Once all units are operational, Lava will have a total capacity of 18 million units per months. A substantial portion of this will also be for exports.
As of now, exports are from the Chinese subsidiary and mainly to Thailand, Bangladesh, China, the Middle East, South America and Africa.
According to Agarwal, manufacturing will spur the ecosystem and lead to increased localisation of components. Over the next three-to-four year period, the handset-maker is looking at a 70 per cent localisation of its devices.