Huawei to begin smartphone manufacturing in India from next year

Huawei, the Chinese tech giant is planning to begin manufacturing smartphone and other accessories in India. Along with manufacturing smartphones and accessories, the company has also announced that it intends to open over 1,000 retail stores in the country.

Jim XU, Global vice president, Huawei consumer business group, had revealed the company's plan and had quoted to TOI "We look at India strategically and now intend to grow our presence in the country by launching devices for the middle and premium price segments,"

Huawei is the second largest smartphone manufacturer in the world and its sale accounted for $52 billion last year. As per Xu, even being a "tough and competitive market", India still remains one of the most lucrative markets over the globe when it comes to smartphones and electronics devices.

Xu had also said that the company intends to "increase production", and manufacture all of its smartphones in the country. One of the major reasons he said was the tax on the imported equipments which accounts for nearly 20 percent. At present, the company is said to import only a handful smartphones in India; however, it is considering to make an investment of $100 million for opening the retail shops, and 1,000 stores in coming 2- 3 years. As for the production of smartphones in the country, Huawei is thinking of teaming up with the manufacturing partner Flex. Flex has already set up a factory in Chennai for manufacturing the smartphones.

XU also believes that offline stores will play a vital role in its expansion strategy and also has plans to launch other consumer products such as smart watches and personal computers. XU further quoted, "We initially plan to import these, but will not hesitate to look at local manufacturing once we start gaining in scale".