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Xiaomi set to make phones in India
NEW DELHI: China's top mobile phone maker Xiaomi is looking to make devices in India, possibly using the idle plant of Nokia at Chennai. The company, the world's third-largest mobile phone vendor and one of the fastest-growing, has said it is scouting for partners for making phones in India, its second-biggest market.
"We are beginning to explore opportunities for manufacturing in India," Manu Jain, operations head for Xiaomi in India, told TOI. "India is a big market and we would like to be close to our customers."
If the plans fructify, this will be the first instance of a top Chinese device maker manufacturing products in India and would boost PM Narendra Modi's 'Make in India' campaign. Indian cellphone maker Micromax, which earlier only manufactured in China, started making smartphones in India too from April this year.
In the second quarter of 2014, Xiaomi upstaged Korean giant Samsung from the top position in China, the world's biggest smartphone market. The company currently imports phones in India from its suppliers in China and has been able to sell about 8 lakh devices here since the brand's launch in July this year.
Jain, who was the co-founder of e-tailer Jabong before coming to Xiaomi, however, did not confirm any plans related to Nokia's idle Chennai plant. The plant did not go to Microsoft as part of its deal to buy the Finnish phone maker's global devices operations due to pending litigations.
"We have not looked at it," Jain said, when asked about its interest in Nokia's India plant, refusing to make any confirmation on the matter.
Jain said local manufacturing will help the company price the devices competitively. The move goes well with Xiaomi's strategy to sell feature-rich devices cheaper than competitors such as Samsung and Apple. "We are looking at manufacturing from the perspective of cost benefits and taxes," Jain said.
The government has initiated moves to boost electronic goods manufacturing by throwing in sops while also approving the setting up of semiconductor wafer plants (commonly known as fab units) for electronic chips.
Xiaomi will look for partners that can help assemble the devices. "The devices will be designed by us, in terms of the hardware and software. The partners can help us in the assembly of the devices," Jain said. "We have started to think on these lines, though we have not worked on any investments." Jain pointed out that the company has a similar arrangement in China where its devices are assembled at global electronics contract manufacturing giant, Foxconn, which also makes phones and devices for Apple and Blackberry.
The company, that only sells devices online globally (it has an exclusive partnership with e-tailer Flipkart for India), displayed its seriousness on the Indian market when it partnered top mobile operator Airtel for its 4G smartphone Redmi Note which will cost Rs 9,999.
This would perhaps be the first time the company will sell a device through the brick-and-mortar route as it rides on Airtel's retail network in some of the country's top cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Chennai.
Source(s):- Xiaomi to Start Manufacturing Phones in India Within 2 Years: Barra | NDTV Gadgets
Xiaomi set to make phones in India - The Times of India
