Xiaomi connects with Foxconn for India smartphone plant

The tie-up, which will make India, Xiaomi’s second local manufacturing hub outside China, comes within days of Foxconn announcing $5 billion investment for a plant in Maharashtra. 

The new factory at Sri City in this coastal town in Andhra Pradesh today began rolling out Xiaomi’s Redmi2 Prime, priced at Rs 6,999 for a 2GB model. Making phones here will help the Chinese firm cut cost and shorten delivery time as it looks to grab a bigger slice of the world’s third-largest smartphone market.

Xiaomi, the world?s fourth-largest phone vendor, will gradually roll out other devices from this facility. The company, which started operations in India last year, also manufactures devices in Brazil. “We are starting small, but our eventual aim is to make most of our devices if not all of our devices that are sold in India, here,” Xiaomi’s India head Manu Jain said. 

Foxconn, a contract manufacturer for the world’s largest electronics brands including Apple Inc, last week announced USD 5 billion investment in Maharashtra over the next five years and is looking at having factories in several parts of the country. “This is our second local manufacturing unit outside of China, the first one being in Brazil with Foxconn... We started our discussions with the government in February and we have already started with the manufacturing,” Xiaomi Vice President Hugo Barra told reporters here.

Xiaomi’s first device being manufactured from Vishakhapatnam is <g data-gr-id="42">Redmi</g> 2 Prime, priced at Rs 6,999, and it will go on sale across online platforms (Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon and mi.com) from today, Barra added. The device is an enhanced version of Xiaomi’s bestseller <g data-gr-id="43">Redmi</g> 2 and features 2GB RAM and 16GB memory. 

At the launch function, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu said: “PM and even we are keen on manufacturing in India. We can become hardware manufacturing hub to not just meet our own demand but of the world. We have a huge potential. We have 10 million tech graduates and entrepreneurs.”

Talking at the event, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) Secretary Amitabh Kant said the government is determined to promote manufacturing in India. “We have identified 25 areas where we have core competencies and we are pushing these areas. We would want to tell Xiaomi to take on Samsung and Apple from Andhra Pradesh. We are committed to <g data-gr-id="46">make</g> India a great manufacturing nation,” Kant said.

Barra, however, declined to share details about the investment, capacity or <g data-gr-id="45">number</g> of employees at the facility. 

Barra said Xiaomi has sold three million devices in the country since the company started its operations in India. It has introduced devices like <g data-gr-id="41">Redmi</g> 1S, <g data-gr-id="71">Redmi</g> 2, <g data-gr-id="72">Redmi</g> Note, Mi 3, Mi 4, Mi 4i and MiPad since then.