Lava International, with a turnover of ₹7,000 crore in 2014-15, has lined up investments of ₹2,615 crore in three phases to take the production capacity to 1.8 crore phones a month from the present 20 lakh.
As part of the expansion, it will set up a manufacturing facility at Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh, which is evolving as a mobile handset manufacturing hub. It would also set up a research and development facility in Telangana with 200 people.
“We are going to invest ₹500 crore in Tirupati to build the facility on 20 acres that can produce 50 lakh phones a month. It will have 12,000 employees,” Sandeep Dongre, Senior Vice-President and Hub Head (East, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh), has said. Addressing a press conference here on Thursday, he said ₹2,615 crore would be implemented in three phases. In the first phase, it would invest ₹57 crore to take the capacity to 25 lakh phones a month at its Noida facility.
“In the second phase, we will put in ₹1,150 crore in the next two-four years to take the human resources to 10,000 and capacity to 50 lakh phones. In the third phase, we will invest the remaining amount to get to the 18 crore phone production capacity,” he said.
The firm claims fourth position after Micromax, Samsung and Lenovo.
When it attains a capacity to produce 1.8 crore phones, the company planned to offer third party production services. The firm, which sells its phones in Thailand, Nepal, Sri lanka and Russia, is also planning to expand its sales operations to Africa.