The Videocon Group has brought on stream its mobile phone assembling unit here in Kolkata.
At the outset it has started with assembling of feature phones. Smartphone manufacturing is expected to start before the Pujas (around October).
The assembling came up at the company existing facility at the IT Township of Salt Lake, on the north eastern part of the city.
The Salt Lake facility had previously been used to manufacture LED TV sets.
“The assembling unit has gone on stream today. While we have begun with feature phone making; smartphone manufacturing is expected to start before the Pujas," Indrajit Ghosh, COO, KAIL said.
KAIL Limited is a part of the Videocon group which also manufactures white goods such as refrigerators, ACs and LED TVs, among others.
Mobile assembly
The assembly unit will have an annual capacity of three million devices; scalable upto 4-5 million.
Anirudh Dhoot, Director, Videocon, has earlier told Business Line that ballpark investments in the manufacturing / assembling facility in Kolkata could be to the tune of Rs 50 crore.
This will be the second handset manufacturing facility for the company after its Aurangabad one. The Aurangabad facility has an annual capacity of 3-4 million units.
Videocon forayed into the mobile manufacturing and assembling business some four years ago. It manufactures mobiles under Videocon and Sansui brands.
Two years ago, it set up the Aurangabad facility for assembling handsets. Since then, it has not been importing finished devices from China.
“After we achieve a sizeable scale in manufacturing our own devices, we might look to do contract job for others,” Ghosh added.