Lenovo claims that they (combined with Motorola’s market) are the top selling 4G device vendors in India. Smartphone shipments to India jumped 44 percent to 26.5 million units in the second quarter this year from the same period a year earlier, IDC said.
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“In the past 10 years, our brand has grown manifold in India”.
The existing cheapest 4G smartphone available in India is the Phicomm Energy 653 priced at Rs 4,999 (500 yuan).
Singapore-based Flex has started making Lenovo and Motorola-branded smartphones in the country, weeks after Taiwan’s Foxconn made a splash by supporting Xiaomi’s efforts to initiate production in the continent.
Lenovo acquired Motorola from Google in 2014 for nearly $3 billion.
“Outside China, this is the only facility where both Lenovo and Motorola smartphones are being manufactured, ” said Amar Babu, COO, Asia Pacific and Chairman Lenovo India. Now, news has it that Lenovo that owns Motorola has started local manufacturing of its smartphones in India at Sriperumbudur near Chennai, reports The Economic Times.
For the current financial year, Lenovo and Motorola will generate a capacity of six million units.
The smartphones are being produced at a factory in Chennai, with contract manufacturer Flextronics being called upon to handle the assembly of the devices. Motorola India published a video to YouTube today showing off the plant – in it you can see some of the individual steps that go into putting together a 2015 Moto E, much of which still seems to be done by hand. We recognized the potential of India and we invested in PC manufacturing several years ago. Lenovo, which is also a customer of FIH, will continue to separately source products for mainland China and other markets.
Additionally, Xolo’s Black brand of smartphones, Micromax co-founder Rahul Sharma’s Yu Televentures have also announced similar plans.
Lenovo’s announcement marks the largest Chinese name yet to be lured by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Make in India campaign, as the competitors vie to increase their share of the world’s third-largest smartphone market.
“It is just a matter of months before we are able to bring 30 percent of the key components needed for manufacturing locally in India”,
Babu added. “We believe this an opportune time”, Babu said.
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India is the world’s fastest growing smartphone market, but so far a lack of good suppliers and infrastructure have hampered efforts to manufacture phones in the country, forcing most of its more than 100 different phone companies to import from China and Taiwan.
