The ex-Nokia Chennai plant soon to open under Salcomp

The long story with the seized Nokia manufacturing plant in Chennai, India, finally came to its end in 2019, and soon the manufacturing plant will be ready to strat the production once again.

The plant has been closed since 2014 due to a tax dispute between the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and Nokia. The dispute was resolved back in 2018, and Nokia sold the plant in 2019 to a Brazilian historically Finnish company Salcomp, which is the world-leading manufacturer of mobile phone chargers. Salcomp will be manufacturing chargers and also smaller components that go into chargers. The government of Tamil Nadu invested in this plant, and Salcomp will be using that funds to revamp the production lines and also to employ new workers. The company currently has 8000 workers, out of which 85% are women. The number will be growing by 5000 till the end of 2021, and an additional 5000 after 2021.

Interestingly, Salcomp has been operating at the Nokia SEZ in Chennai since 2007 when it used to supply Nokia with chargers. Now the company is manufacturing chargers for Apple, Vivo, Oppo, Foxconn, Xiaomi, and hopefully for Nokia phones again. Nokiamob