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India’s Celkon opens first manufacturing facility

The unit, spread over 30,000sqft, is presently equipped with four assembly lines and has a capacity of 200,000 units a month.

Hyderabad — Indian mobile handset brand Celkon has launched its first manufacturing facility at the Medchal industrial area in Telangana, a move that will help the cause of the “Make in India” campaign and could lead to further reduction in the prices of mobile handsets.

The facility, located on the city outskirts, was inaugurated by the Telangana Information Technology Minister K.T. Rama Rao. With an ongoing investment of Rs2 billion, the factory will produce both feature and smartphones in the entry- to mid-level price segment initially, company officials said.

The unit, spread over 30,000sqft, is presently equipped with four assembly lines and has a capacity of 200,000 units a month. It will be expanded to 12 lines and a total of 500,000 units capacity per month within the next quarter. Celkon’s new manufacturing unit will employ 500 people including skilled technicians.

Nearly 60 per cent of the handsets manufactured in the factory will be feature phones while the rest will be smartphones, company officials said. Additionally, the facility will also house a 10,000sqft warehouse for raw materials and a 5,000sqft warehouse for finished products.

“The ultimate aim is to reach one million devices a month,” an official said. Celkon sells 700,000 handsets a month across the country and is targeting one million a month in sales going forward. It imports all its devices as of now.

“Being a part of the central government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative, we feel that our manufacturing operations in India are beginning on a high note. This also comes in at a time when India is poised to become the largest consumer base for mobile phones and we are all set to bring-in the new phase of growth at Celkon,” chairman and managing director Y. Guru said.

Telangana, the country’s newest state, has been attracting major investments into both software and hardware sectors. Micromax, India’s second-largest handset manufacturer, has already announced that it would set up its manufacturing plant in Hyderabad with an investment of Rs4-Rs5 billion.

Pledging his government commitment to facilitating industrial growth, Rama Rao said that mobile phone units could provide a large number of low-end employment opportunities to those from ITIs and diploma holders.

The minister said that he would soon visit South Korea and Japan to hard-sell the state to electronic hardware manufacturers. The plans were on to develop hardware cluster in Maheswaram, Medchal and Ghatkesar, all near Hyderabad.

— business@khaleejtimes.com