Gionee to set up Rs 500 crore handset-making unit in the North
The Chinese smartphone makers will build a manufacturing plant in northern India, investing about Rs. 500 crore, to supply the demand in the country and several other markets like South East Asia and Africa. Gionee to set up Rs 500 crore handset-making unit in the North.
Gionee which brings together its handsets in Indis via third-party players such as Dixon and Foxconn is confident that the plant will be ready for operation in about 2 years.
MD and CEO Gionee India, Arvind Vohra says that the company is in a process of acquiring a land in the northern part of the country. The 50-acre land has a capacity of 30 million units per year. The land should be ready in about two years. Although he refused to share the location details of the plant with the media. He further said that the plant would be end-to-end manufacturing unit. It will help the company to hauler the demand in India and various nearby markets. Gionee will invest around Rs.500 crore in the plant.
About 60 percent Gionee India handset are manufactured locally at services run by Dixon (Noida) and Foxconn (Tamil Nadu). According to IDC, with Chinese smartphone makers like Gionee, Vivo and Lenovo shipment of smartphones have seen a significant growth of 17.1 percent consecutively to 27.5 million units in April-June quarter.
Vohra states that Gionee has crossed half million units sales per month and by the end of this year it expects the sales to go up to one million units. He says that last year company has seen 100 percent growth and this year also it expects a strong growth.
As a plan to expand its market in India Gionee planning to announce four new smartphones which will be priced between Rs. 9,999 and Rs. 24,999 by mid-October. Its current market shares stand at 5 percent, and the company aims to acquire 7-10 percent share by this year. Vohra said that they have set a budget of Rs.600 crore for this year and have employed one-third of it. Around Rs. 200 crores will be invested in the festival season, and the rest of the amount will be utilized in concluding part of marketing and branding procedure.
Bollywood actress Alia Bhatt is the company’s brand ambassador, and there is a discussion to sign other celebrity; however no one has been finalized yet.
