About eight months after starting its operations in India, the Chinese tech company LeEco (formerly known as Letv) has announced it is going to launch its first manufacturing facility in Greater Noida. The facility has already been set up with an initial investment of $5 million, and another $2 million has been estimated for the automation process. The tech giant has paired up with Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Compal Electronics and set up this facility in the country.
The Union Minister for Electronics & IT and Law & Justice, Ravi Shankar Prasad did the inauguration of the plant in the presence of COO of Smart Electronics Business for LeEco India, Atul Jain.
Prasad said for the second time that the market size of electronics in India is supposed to grow up to $400 billion by 2020, so it is extremely important that manufacturing units are encouraged. He also said that LeEco has some reputation in the tech world and it is “heartening” to see them get involved in the ‘Make in India.’ This essentially proves how much trust foreign companies are now willing to put in India. He also lauded the efforts put in by the company to train local talents and to develop an R&D facility.
LeEco also announced at the inauguration that it crossed the 1 million sales volume for smartphones in the country. Vice President, Le Holdings, and CEO, LeEco Asia Pacific, Tin Mok said that India is a top priority in LeEco’s global expansion roadmap. Additionally, he also intimated that the company is here for the long haul by saying that the company intends to hire more local talents and train them. Adding 1000 engineers to their employee list is also in their plans.
The new production facility is based out of Noida and is spread over an area of 200,000 sq. feet. The initial production capacity of the company is 60,000 units per month but the company wants to increase it to 200,000 by the end of this fiscal year.
The idea behind creating this facility is to provide the already cheaply available phones at cheaper rates. LeEco is one of the fastest-growing smartphone brands in India and after this plant becomes operational; it is expected that they will become more aggressive with their launches and marketing plans. Competing with the likes of Chinese counterparts OnePlus, bringing production into India brings a completely new angle to the race.
