Giving boost to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi”s “Make in India” initiative, Vivo Mobile has become the first Chinese handset maker to fully start assembling smartphones in India. It has officially launched a smartphone assembly plant in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh
By Mohd Ujaley
Giving boost to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi”s “Make in India” initiative, Vivo Mobile has become the first Chinese handset maker to fully start assembling smartphones in India.
The Shenzhen-headquartered Vivo Mobile officially launched a smartphone assembly plant in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh today.
The company has started assembling three Y series smartphones – Y11, Y21 and Y15S from this plant. And, in future company aims to assemble all the models. “Going forward, all the models will be manufactured at this unit,” Alex Feng, CEO of Vivo Mobile India told reporters.
Currently, the capacity of the Great Noida plant is to produce 1.5 lakhs devices per month and company plans to expand it to 3 lakhs unit per month. On the question of how soon this capacity could be achieved, Ye Chin, GM Production Centre, Vivo India said “It could be done anytime, but it will depend on the overall performance of the Vivo India.”
With assembling unit in India, company is likely to pass the benefits to the consumers. “Devices assembled locally will be 5-10% cheaper and the price drop will happen for all the devices in India over a period of time,” said Alex, adding that Vivo has already reduced the price for Y 11 smartphone.
Currently, Vivo has 30 exclusive stores, 10,000 outlets across the country and sale channels in 400 cities in 20 states. The company is also planning to increase its 25 exclusive service centers to 200 by the end of 2016.
The handset vendor sold over a million smartphones in India this calender year. Presently, Vivo is selling its device offline through a well established distribution system online casino across the country and company official confirms that it does not plan to go online in near future.
In the Greater Noida assembly unit, Vivo has invested Rs 125 crores as its first phase of investment in the 30,000 sq.m facility which comprises several assembly lines, quality control lab and warehouses. The new assembly unit will create around 2,200 jobs, claims Vivo.
Asked about further investments and how much budget is allocated to manufacturing. Alex said there”s no specific planned budget to manufacturing. “Further investments on this front will be decided by the demand in the market and our performance,” he added.
On the question of how much money Vivo will spend on the marketing and promotion. Alex said the company will spend Rs 200 crore on marketing during the calendar year 2016. Half of this will be spent on the sponsorship of Indian Premier League (IPL). “Young people like sports and music and we feel these are efficient way of marketing products and establishing a brand,” he added.
According to recent IDC report, the Indian handset industry is likely to overtake the US as the second-largest market in the next few years. And, smartphone makers are keen to tap this opportunity. Some of the leading device makers such as Samsung and Micromax already have assembly units in the country and few of the Chinese vendors like Xiaomi, Lenovo, OnePlus and Gionee have recently started assembling in partnership with tech major Foxconn.
Launched in 2014, Vivo Mobile India has completed its first anniversary on 15th December 2015.
