Taiwanese electronics giant Asus is expanding its local laptop production with its electronics manufacturing service (EMS) partners, Flex and Dixon. The collaboration with Dixon will start in April 2025 and is expected to produce approximately 10% of Asus' consumer notebooks this year, a top official said.
"Asus partnered with Flex in 2023 to establish manufacturing in Chennai to meet growing demand in India. Initially, the scale of operations met only a fraction of the demand, but now, with Flex’s support, we’re focusing on addressing the increased demand we anticipate in the Indian market," said Arnold Su, Vice President of Consumer and Gaming PC, System Business Group, Asus India, in an interview with Moneycontrol.
He added, "Our manufacturing expansion plans are designed to accommodate the rising demand from Indian customers."
In February, Asus launched the Vivobook 16 and Zenbook A14, both featuring Qualcomm’s new chipset and priced at Rs 65,990. However, Su said, these devices are still being imported from China.
Flex has been producing laptops and smartphones for several brands in India, including Chromebooks for HP and Google at its facility near Chennai.
Dixon, headquartered in Noida, has partnered with HP, Lenovo, Acer, and Asus to manufacture laptops locally. The company will produce Asus laptops at its subsidiary, Padget Electronics, in an upcoming IT Hardware Chennai facility with an annual capacity of 2 million laptops. This facility will also make HP laptops.
Asus, which offers laptops ranging from Rs 20,000 to Rs 4.5 lakhs, sees India as a key priority market. The company previously announced plans to manufacture high-end gaming laptops in India this year. Asus aims to become the leading player in India’s consumer laptop market by the end of 2024, surpassing competitors like HP and Dell.
Asus anticipates a significant surge in sales of Snapdragon-based laptops, predicting an 8 to 10-fold increase in 2025 compared to the previous year.
Qualcomm has highlighted that the Snapdragon X platform offers 45 TOPS (Tera Operations Per Second) of AI performance and supports Microsoft Copilot+ for an enhanced user experience. The chipset also includes features like 5G, Wi-Fi 7, and the Snapdragon Sound Technology Suite, ensuring high-fidelity wireless audio, along with robust privacy protections from chip to cloud.
Kedar Kondap, Senior Vice President & General Manager of computing and gaming at Qualcomm Technologies, stated, "In India, the Snapdragon X platform will make AI-powered computing more accessible and affordable, significantly boosting productivity and user satisfaction."
To enhance accessibility, Qualcomm is expanding its online presence for Snapdragon X laptops through Flipkart Minutes, which allows customers to receive orders within 10 minutes. The company also launched its first offline Snapdragon Experience Zone at Croma, Juhu, Mumbai.
Additionally, Qualcomm is advancing on-device AI capabilities by collaborating with Independent Software Vendors (ISVs). The Snapdragon X launch featured Tech Mahindra’s Indic Large Language Model (LLM), IndusQ, which supports 37 regional dialects, and Manav, a multi-lingual AI tutor.
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