Construction for Lava's Tirupati plant to begin soon

Mobile handset firm Lava International Ltd today said construction of its manufacturing unit in Tirupati would commence soon.

The company, currently has two manufacturing units in Noida with a capacity to produce up to thirty lakh units a month.

"For the Tirupati plant, the layout has been completed. The construction will start soon," Lava International, Head-Product, Gaurav Nigam told PTI on the sidelines of an event here.

The company also plans to increase retail presence by adding outlets, he said.

"Right now, we have 1,100 distributors. We have covered urban, suburban and rural areas. We are trying to go to villages which have less than 10,000 population to ensure that a consumer there has an access to a Lava phone," he said.

The company has ramped up production at its manufacturing facilities in Noida, he said, the investment proposals at Tirupati, expanding market presence, were part of the company's plan to increase market share from the present six per cent to 40 per cent.

"Our plan is to achieve 40 per cent market share over the next 12-18 months," he said.

As part of achieving the vision, the company reduced the number of models it was selling in India, he added.

"We have reduced the number of models from the (earlier) 50 to 13. It includes eight feature phones and five smartphones," he said.

On the exports front, Nigam said the company began shipping some of its products to countries in the African continent.

"We are expanding into other countries. For Africa sales, the entire production happens in India. It includes both smartphones and feature phones," he added.

Nigam and senior company officials were here to unveil the Lava Z61 smartphone equipped with 18:9 full view high definition display powered by a 3000 mAH battery.

The variant with 1GB RAM and 16GB storage is priced at Rs 5,750 and that with 2GB RAM, 16GB storage at Rs 6,750, he said.