Chinese mobile maker Gionee will invest ₹300 crore in building a manufacturing facility in India in the next three years. This is part of the firm’s plan to Make in India. The firm, which sold 40 lakh mobile phones in the country in 2014-15, might go for contract manufacturing in order to kick-start the mobile production in the country.

Gionee global President William Lu has said that the firm would implement ‘Make in India’, making it a hub not only for India for also for the countries near by.

A good number of the 10-12 new models it is planning to launch this year would be manufactured in India. “If our plans go well, we will start manufacturing sooner and put in all the investments in the next year,” Arvind Vohra, Country Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Gionee India, told BusinessLine here on Saturday.

The firm appointed E&Y to advise it on setting up manufacturing facility, which might produce phones for the countries near by. As it targets a turnover of ₹6,000 crore and double sales to 80 lakh phones in 2015-16, the firm has almost doubled its marketing investments to ₹225 crore for the year and lined up big ticket cricketing and football sponsorships.

The firm launched its new phone Elife S7 here on Saturday. Claimed to be the slimmest phone, S7 is priced at ₹24,999.

The firm has a market share of 4 per cent in the country. Its share is highly skewed in different markets, with Rajasthan topping the list with 20 per cent and Gujarat with 9 per cent.

Cricket sponsorships

The firm has just replaced Nokia as Principal Sponsor of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). The three-year sponsorship involves an investment of about ₹54 crore ($9 million).

“We are also sponsoring a football team in the north-east. These sponsorships will help us penetrate in the Eastern and North-Eastern markets very well. Besides, sponsoring of the IPL team would give us mind space during the cricketing carnival,” he said.

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