The Hindu : Business : Samsung’s Sriperumbudur unit goes on stream

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Wednesday, Nov 14, 2007
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Samsung’s Sriperumbudur unit goes on stream

Special Correspondent

The facility will produce flat TVs, LCD TVs, home appliances

— PHOTO: BIJOY GHOSH

BETS ON INDIA: H. B. Lee (right), President and CEO, Samsung South West Asia Regional Headquarters, with Ravinder Zutshi, Deputy Managing Director, Samsung Electronics India Pvt. Ltd., at a press conference in Chennai on Tuesday.

CHENNAI: Samsung Electronics has opened its second manufacturing facility in India at Sriperumbudur, 44 km to the west of here, to cater to its growing consumer base in southern India as well as increase its exports to countries in the South Asian region. The US$ 30 million facility, which was inaugurated by the Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi on Tuesday, will manufacture flat televisions, LCD televisions and home appliances.

“The growing demand for our products in the south, coupled with the strong infrastructure, the port facilities and the Tamil Nadu Government’s investor-friendly policies, prompted us to set up this new facility,” H. B. Lee, President and CEO, Samsung South West Asia Regional Headquarters, said. Southern India is the company’s largest consumer base in the country, contributing to 34 per cent of its overall revenue.

The 20-acre plant, located at the SIPCOT industrial park in Sriperumbudur, has the capacity to produce 1.5 million flat and ultra-slim televisions and three lakh LCD televisions every year. R. Zutshi, Deputy Managing Director, Samsung India, said that the plant would also start production of home appliances such as fully automatic washing machines by the middle of next year, with a likely output between one lakh and two lakh units every year.

There are no plans to produce mobile phones in the plant as the company’s Noida manufacturing facility itself handles production for its entire Indian market (five lakh units).

Samsung is likely to invest around $100 million in the plant in the next four years. Around 350 employees have been hired so far, and the company expects to hire around 2,500 people in total. Mr. Zutshi said that the company would focus on hiring local talent from the region. The plant will also produce products for export to Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

The export of colour televisions will begin early next year. “The facility will support our businesses in these growing markets, and we hope we can improve on our current export value of Rs. 200 crore,” Mr. Zutshi added.

Samsung at present has a 47 per cent market share in colour television sales in the country, and a 22 per cent share in flat televisions.

The company had a growth of $1.3 billion last year in India.

Mr. Lee said that Samsung would seek to introduce products to cater to the region’s specific interests. “Our hardware and software research and development centres in Noida and Bangalore will support the Chennai facility. We will continue to develop products specially for our customers in the region such as the mobile phones with trackers and Easy View televisions that we recently introduced.”

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