To make the ‘Make in India’ initiative of PM Narendra Modi a success and reduce the country's dependence on imports for gadgets, the Indian smartphone manufacturer Maxx Mobilink has planned to start mobile handsets at its Haridwar plant.Currently the plant is manufacturing mobile batteries and chargers.
Maxx will begin with assembling devices from April and then subsequently manufacture both feature phone and smartphone at the facility. It will also set up a research and development (R&D) lab to support manufacturing.
With an initial investment of Rs. 6crores, Maxx will set up the R&D lab, which will take care of device testing and software innovation such as language packs, user interface (UI) and other utility-based applications.
The company will not look for much investment as the existing machinery will be sufficient for the first phase but will take assistance of some Chinese companies and will import Printed Circuit Board (PCB) Assembly from China while the rest of the parts will be manufactured in India, including battery and body.
Aiming to close with revenue of Rs. 600 crores this year, Maxx is eyeing 1,000 crore in the coming year and 3% share of the overall handset market in the country. Currently, the company has less than 1% market share in India and 90% of unit sales are features phones. Maxx will focus more on smartphones, launch more devices and sell them online through Amazon and Flipkart. Around April the company will launch a 4G smartphone priced at about Rs 7,000.
Following in the footsteps of Maxx, Lava too has revealed its plan to start manufacturing in the country. It has also said that it will start assembling devices at its Noida factory from April and is planning to set up a factory at a cost of Rs.500 crore over three years, besides looking at buying Nokia's Chennai plant.
