(LiveMint)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and South Korean President Moon Jae-in have inaugurated Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd’s mobile phone factory in Noida—the largest in the world. The facility is spread over 35 acres in Noida’s Sector 81. Said to be built at a cost of ₹ 4,500 crore, the Samsung’s Noida plant can produce 12 crore mobile phones every year, ranging from low-end smartphones to its flagship Samsung Galaxy S9, and will create 15,000 local jobs.
The factory will also help Samsung to compete with rivals such as China’s Xiaomi, which became India’s biggest smartphone brand by shipments earlier this year.Under intense competition from Apple Inc. and Chinese rivals that also include Oppo, Vivo, Gionee and Lenovo, Samsung plans to make India its export hub for countries in Europe, Middle East and Africa.
Samsung’s Noida plant was set up in 1996 where it has been manufacturing smartphones, refrigerators and flat-screen televisions. The South Korean electronics giant had last year announced a fresh investment of ₹ 4,915 crore to expand the existing plant by another 35 acres. It was meant double the production capacity of both mobile phones and refrigerators. Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath has already visited the Samsung plant in Noida ahead of inauguration by Modi and Moon at 5 pm.“This ₹50 billion investment will not only strengthen Samsung’s business ties in India, it will also play a key role in India-Korea relations,” Modi said in a speech at the inauguration of the plant.
