Optiemus to manufacture 1.5 lakh laptops a year, doubles production capacity for wearables and hearables

Electronics manufacturing services firm Optiemus Electronics is aiming production of up to 1.5 lakh laptop units a year and to double production capacity for wearables and hearables this year — a move that can bring down prices of products in these categories.

Optiemus Electronics Limited (OEL), Managing Director, A Gururaj said that the company is looking to invest Rs 150 crore on ramping up manufacturing capacity as well as hire up to 2,000 people in 2022.

“We can manufacture roughly about 1lakh to 1.5 lakh laptops per year. Customer is saying that I want more. We are in discussion with them (OEMs). We are at about a lakh and a half like laptops per year (in terms of capacity). We will start somewhere at that level to begin with in the next two to three months,” he said.

Without commenting on the exact impact on prices of products, Gururaj said that local manufacturing has contributed to the benefit of the end customer.

“The same should happen in the laptop segment as well,” he said.

He, however, said that impact on prices depends on several factors like economy of scale in the product segment, healthy supply chain etc.

OEL is among electronic manufacturing services (EMS) that has qualified for production linked incentive (PLI) scheme.

He said that OEL is bullish on growth in wearables and hearing device business during the present calendar year.

“The wearables market grew about 119 per cent on a year-on-year basis, as of June 2021. We had an output of about 1.1 crore units out of India, in that last one year, and strong shipments from homegrown brands. The homegrown brands in this segment, unlike say a mobile phone, are growing big time. Watches are fuelling growth. All these are reports from the IDC,” Gururaj said.

The Ministry of Electronics and IT has proposed the Finance Ministry to provide an incentive of around Rs 22,000 crore in the next financial year as PLI for wearables and enhance the incentives for IT hardware.

Gururaj said that OEL has started focussing on the wearable segment even without PLI being in place for the same.

The company already makes devices for Noise.

“While we are ramping up capacity for Noise, we will also be working with more brands and OEMs to double-triple this business in the coming year. The hearables and wearables space is the homegrown brands are doing very well, you know, and I think their market share is substantial,” Gururaj said.

The company at present has capacity to manufacture 3 lakh wearables and hearable devices at present which it plans to more than double to 7 lakh units per month by March, he said.