Chinese mobile phone manufacturer Transsion Holdings, which entered India with its itel mobile brand in April, has shortlisted Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh to set up a manufacturing plant, in the next 6-8 months, according to Sudhir Kumar, CEO, itel Mobile Ltd.
The company plans to create an industrial park in India that will not only have mobile manufacturing but also an entire ecosystem consisting of other manufacturers, including LCD, battery and chargers, he told BusinessLine on the sidelines of the launch of itel mobiles in Tamil Nadu.
Connectivity to ports is crucial for selecting the location of the plant, he said.
At present, the company has outsourced manufacturing of its phones to Noida-based MCM and imports some from its factories in China and Africa.
Kumar said Transsion Holdings is the No. 1 feature phone manufacturer in the world. It has five manufacturing units, located in China and Ethiopia. In Africa, itel is one of the largest mobile manufacturers with over 45 per cent market share, he said.
The Chinese company has sold nearly 3 million units since launching its phones in India in April. The brand has 15 products in the market. “We plan to sell 2 million handsets per month by Diwali,” Kumar told reporters.
More service centresitel has tie-ups with 500 distributors and around 30,000 retailers. It plans to increase the number of distributors to 1,000 and retailers to 80,000 by this year-end. The company plans to set up 1,000 service centres by the end of this year, he said.
Today’s launch is the phase-II roll out of itel in Chennai and in other major geographies, including West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and North Eastern States, he said.