LeEco initiates with 'Make in India'; to invest USD 7 million for local manufacturing

Global internet technology conglomerate LeEco on Tuesday announced its plans to manufacture 400,000 smartphones a month in India by the fiscal end as it begins making phones locally in association with Taiwan's Compal Electronics.

To boost the government's Make in India program, the internet ecosystem company is set to launch a state-of-the-art USD seven billion smartphone manufacturing unit in Greater Noida.

Spread over 200,000 square feet area and having a capacity to produce nearly 60,000 phones per month initially, the unit already employs over 200 professionals.

LeEco is also investing USD two million for the automation process at the facility.

"The facility will provide six to eight percent of cost benefit to us," said LeEco COO Smart Electronics Business, Atul Jain.

"LeEco has a similar partnership with Compal for its facility in China. India attracted investment from 37 mobile manufacturing companies in the last one year that have generated 40,000 direct jobs and 1.25 lakh indirect employment. These include the likes of Xiaomi, Vivo, Gionee, Karbonn, Lava, Micromax, Intex, Jivi, iTel, and MTech," added Jain.

The company, which entered the Indian market in January has a large content base in its home market of China, where it aims to spend USD 200 million in developing local content for the India market, besides investments towards manufacturing.

LeEco launched its handsets in India in January this year and televisions a few weeks ago. It has already sold one million units of smartphones in India including five superphones with membership of content and internet services, on its e-commerce platform LeMall.