Samsung India plans a Rs 2500-crore investment

Samsung is set to give a major boost to Make in India as it is planning a Rs 2500-crore investment in the country to turn its local operations into a hub for its components business. The company could further increase this investment later. Samsung has established two new component-manufacturing factories in India, Samsung Display Co. and Samsung SDI India, to make display components and batteries respectively for its smartphones.

The company has also opened a branch of its venture capital firm Samsung Venture Investment Corp. to pump money into the tech and electronic start-ups in India. As the tax on imported phone components is rising in India, the company sees this as an opportunity to shift some of the manufacturing to India.

The company has approached the government for select export incentives to be able to export some components from India to its global market. The Uttar Pradesh government recently signed a deal worth Rs 1500 crore with Samsung to manufacture phone display by April 2020, for which a plant will be set up in Noida.

Samsung SDI is also planning to set up a shop in India for lithium-ion batteries. It plans to infuse Rs 900–1000 crore and will come up with a definitive plan after the elections are concluded at the end of May. This comes a year after the company, for Rs 4915 crore, inaugurated the largest phone-manufacturing company in the world in India which should be operational in 2020.

Samsung’s investments on component manufacturing in India will eventually overtake that of the finished product since these are capital-intensive projects and more Samsung component entities are keen on making in India.