- Homegrown mobile device maker Lava International said it is shifting its China operations to India after recent government policy in Friday announcements.
In April, the government approved three schemes involving total incentives of around Rs 48,000 crore to improve local electronics output and build 20 direct and indirect lakh jobs by 2025. The notification included a reward scheme linked to production.
Homegrown mobile device maker Lava International said Friday after recent government policy announcements it is shifting its China operations to India. Over the next five years, the company plans to invest Rs 800 Crore to expand its mobile phone production and manufacturing operations in the region. “We had about 600-650 Chinese employees for product design.
We’ve now moved template to India. Our local plant had met our sales requirements for India. “We used to partially export cell phones from China to the rest of the world, which will now happen from India,” said Hari Om Rai, president, and managing director of Lava International.
Lava met its export demand from China during the lockdown period. “My vision is to have mobile devices shipped to China. Indian companies now export smartphone chargers to China. The reward scheme linked to production has put an end to our impairment factor vis-à-vis China exports. Thus entire operations will be carried out from India now, “Rai said.
In April, the government notified three schemes involving total incentives of around Rs 48,000 crore to improve local electronics output and generate 20 direct and indirect lakh jobs by 2025. The notification included a relevant incentive scheme (PLI) for growth. Under the scheme, electronics manufacturing companies will receive an incentive of 4 – 6 percent on incremental (over a base year) sales of goods manufactured in India covered by target segments over five years.
“We are working on a plan over the next five years to spend Rs 800 crore to scale up our operations,” Rai said.
Over the past four years, cell phone production in the country has risen eight times, from about Rs 18,900 crore in 2014-15 to over Rs 2 lakh crore in 2019-20. Demand in the country is met almost entirely by domestic output.
The government estimates that the domestic value-added for cell phones is expected to grow from the current level of 20-25 percent to 35-40 percent by 2025 through the PLI scheme and generate 8 additional lakh jobs, both direct and indirect.