Lava International has told the Economic Times that it has started manufacturing Nokia and Motorola branded smartphones through the local manufacturing means. This comes as a result of Lava’s strategy to strengthen its supply chain ecosystem in India.
“We have plans to partner with companies that can share supply chains. We are making smartphones for Motorola and Nokia [HMD Global]. All Nokia smartphones are by Lava. We are combining their supply chain with us. All agreements are in place,” Hari Om Rai, chairman and managing director of the company told ET.
“We want to work with important companies that are from outside of the ecosystem in India so that their supply chain can be combined,” Rai said.
According to Lava, the partnerships are strategic in Nature and should help both the brands to pay more attention and take care of the after-sales services for both the brands.
Rai said that the company has begun its expansion under the PLI scheme and is in talks with various brands. “We will be able to meet the PLI target for this year.”
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The company is also in talks with all three telecom operators for design and manufacturing of smartphones. “We have reached an advanced level of talks with one of the telcos. Phones will be co-branded but will be subsidised by the telco”, he added.
Lava is expecting a growth from Rs 70 crore last year to around Rs 300 crore this year from the business it gets from government and enterprise segment.
Lava has been working on scaling up its manufacturing capabilities for the last three years. In 2018, the company invested over Rs 2,600 crore in its manufacturing units to reach a production capacity of 21.6 crore units in the next five years to capitalize on manufacturing sub Rs 10,000 smartphones.
Not only that, but Lava also has India’s first mobile devices design centre to give a boost to the mobile manufacturing ecosystem in the country and attract component players. They have put in a claimed initial investment of Rs 250 crore in it to design budget smartphones for their brand as well as other companies.
Production Linked Incentive Scheme (PLI) was launched by the Government of India to boost manufacturing in India and the name of the shortlisted companies has been announced. In total, 16 global and domestic mobile phone and electronic component makers, including Lava, Micromax, Samsung, are eligible for the support.