LeEco has partnered with Compal Electronics to open a smartphone manufacturing facility in Greater Noida with an initial investment of Rs.33.53 crore.
After Xiaomi, Vivo and Gionee, another Chinese company is setting up shop in India.
LeEco, a Chinese internet ecosystem company, has partnered with Taiwan’s Compal Electronics to open a smartphone manufacturing facility in Greater Noida with an initial investment of ₹33.53 crore ($5 million), with an additional ₹13.41 crore ($2 million) earmarked for the automation process, local media outlets have reported.
Spread over an area of more than 18,000 square metres, the facility will start assembling 60,000 Le 2 smartphone units on a monthly basis. By the end of December, LeEco expects the facility to ramp up its capacity to 200,000.
“We have a strong R&D team in India and plan to add over 1,000 engineers to it by the next year, which we intend to leverage for designing and developing products that resonate even better with our users here and also in overseas markets,” said Tin Mok, Vice President of Le Holdings and CEO of LeEco Asia Pacific.
The company said the facility will provide jobs to at least 200 skilled professionals.
This will be Compal’s first step in India. The contract manufacturer, which makes more than half of LeEco’s mobile phones, also has presence in Poland, Mexico, Brazil and China, according to The Economic Times.
One of the factors that lured LeEco into setting up a facility was the manufacturing incentives the government offers under its Make in India program.
“LeEco believes it’s the perfect time to begin our manufacturing operations in India especially with a new tax system in place. The Goods and Services Tax (GST) will trigger a paradigm shift in the manufacturing sector in India and bring in growth and business opportunities to the country. The GST will also ease the traditional bottlenecks such as production costs, production time, supply chain, logistics and much more,” LeEco said in a statement.
LeEco joins the 37 mobile manufacturing companies that have made an investment on India in the last year alone, including China’s Gionee and Xiaomi as well as domestic companies like Karbonn, Lava, Micromax, Intex, Jivi, iTel and MTech.
