South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics is actively weighing the option of manufacturing laptops in India from next month, giving an impetus to the government's efforts to promote domestic production through a combination of financial incentives, tax benefits, and import restrictions, a newspaper report said.
Samsung’s Greater Noida factory, initially focused on mobile phone production, has undergone expansion to accommodate a new manufacturing unit dedicated to laptops. The facility is expected to have an annual capacity to manufacture around 60,000 to 70,000 units, the Mint reported. This move aligns with the broader trend of tech companies aiming to enhance local manufacturing and reduce dependency on imports.
Moneycontrol couldn’t verify the report independently.
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“Samsung will start to make laptops here. The Noida plant, the company’s largest mobile phone manufacturing factory, will house the additional lines that will be used for making laptops,” a person with knowledge of the matter told the business daily on the condition of anonymity.
The daily quoted a second source as saying that the new manufacturing facility is scheduled to start operations next month, initially operating at a limited capacity. “About 60,000-70,000 units are likely to be made. That’s the annual capacity,” the person added.
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The Korean chaebol is poised to become the earliest foreign hardware manufacturers lacking a local laptop manufacturing capacity to start production. The move follows the government's proposed curbs on the import of laptops, tablets, personal computers, servers, and ultra-small form factor devices from November 2024. The establishment of a laptop manufacturing capacity involves an investment of Rs 100-200 crore, the report mentioned, citing the source.
Samsung did not participate in the IT hardware Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, which concluded at the end of August, the report said, citing data provided by the IT ministry. Despite not joining the scheme, it is actively involved in the manufacturing of various consumer goods within India. More importantly, it has a significant presence in India, and has the largest mobile phone manufacturing facility in the country, construction for which commenced in 2017 with a substantial investment amounting to nearly Rs 5,000 crore.
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“Samsung is a very small player in PC/notebook. It has invested in local assembly of tablets and smartphones, but assembly of notebooks isn’t a feasible business for them at this point in time,” Navkendar Singh, associate vice-president at International Data Corp (IDC) India, told Mint.
He, however, added that HP, Lenovo and Dell, which were making large numbers of laptops in India, were set to expand as they were applicants under the PLI scheme, and others may follow suit, leading to a higher share of local production and consequently lower imports.
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