Micromax to invest Rs 300 crore for 'Make in India'

New Delhi Handset maker Micromax will invest Rs 300 crore over the next few months as it sets up three new manufacturing units in India to ramp up domestic production and reduce dependence on imports from China The new plants will be set up in Rajasthan Telangana and Andhra Pradesh and will become operational over the course of next yearWe have been allotted 20 acres land in Telangana and the civil structure is almost ready Similarly in Rajasthan we have got 25 acres land and construction will start in a few days Tirupati will also start soon Micromax cofounder Rajesh Agarwal told PTIHe added that once all the units are functional the company will have a capacity of about 4 million unitsWe will be able to provide employment to some 30003500 people in each factory This is more than Make in India its about making India a hub for electronic manufacturing as our electronics import bills will overshoot our crude bills in the next few years given the heavy demand he saidAgarwal added that Micromax will invest about Rs 100 crore on each of the new projectsCurrently the company has an assembly unit in Rudrapur Uttarakhand that produces about one million units This accounts for about 3035 per cent of its requirement and the remaining are imported from ChinaThe intent is to manufacture in India We see that as an industry by 2017 we will start making batteries and other components here in India It will only mature in the future and I am sure we can export to other markets from India as well he saidGlobal handset makers like Samsung and domestic players like Spice have assembly units in India International players like Xiaomi Gionee and Asus have announced assembly units in partnership with electronics major Foxconn in Andhra Pradesh in the recent pastHandset makers are looking to tap the multibillion dollar opportunity in India which is one of the fastest growing smartphone markets in the worldThe Fast Track Task Force has a target to cross 500 million mobile phone manufacturing employment to 15 lakh plus and a component industry of 50000 crores besides other terms of reference by 20192020We are witnessing strong green shoots alreadyManufacturing value will grow 95 in 201516 compared to 201415 We are confident of achieving in fact crossing the target set out for 20192020 by that time Indian Cellular Association ICA National President Pankaj Mohindroo saidDomestic brands particularly Micromax and Lava will play a leading role in spearheading this task of nation building he saidICA also expects global giants like Foxconn to play an equally significant role he addedIn December last year government had set up a joint task force which included industry representatives from Samsung Microsoft and Lava to rejuvenate nations mobile phone manufacturing ecosystem with a view to achieve production of 500 million units of mobile handsets by 2019Lava is also looking to bring the entire manufacturing ecosystem to India It is investing Rs 2615 crore over the next seven years to set up two manufacturing units in IndiaOur plan is to expand exporting to other countries next year and hopefully by 2019 we will export to China itself Lava International CMD Hari Om Rai had saidThe Indian handset industry is poised to overtake the US as the secondlargest market in next few yearsAccording to research firm IDC smartphone shipments in India grew 214 per cent in the JulySeptember 2015 quarter to 283 million units buoyed by a threefold jump in demand for 4Genabled devicesSamsung was the largest player with 24 per cent share of the smartphone market followed by Micromax 167 per cent Intex 108 per cent Lenovo Group Lenovo and Motorola at 95 per cent and Lava 47 per cent