LeEco to manufacture smartphones in India

Chinese Internet company LeEco, which entered the Indian market in January this year, has announced its plan to manufacture smartphones in India. For this, the company has tied up with Compal Electronics, which has set up a unit in Greater Noida. The facility has been set up at an investment of $5 million and a further $2 million has been earmarked for the automation process.

Spread over 20,000 sq. ft and employing 200 people currently, the facility will assemble 60,000 units of Le 2 smartphone per month, with the help of which LeEco is looking at boosting its market presence and share in India.

Going forward, LeEco plans to ramp up the production to approximately 200,000 units per month. Atul Jain, COO of Smart Electronics Business at LeEco India, says: "Our intent is to also export from here. So, if there is excess capacity available and if there is demand coming in from other markets, we will export from here. This should happen anytime soon - if you look at our road map, we are looking at opening up in Russia, and Indonesia is opening in six months to one year. We are also looking at Singapore and Malaysia. With all these geographies opening up, I do see exporting from here to Indonesia and other countries, but first India's needs have to be addressed."

There isn't any exclusive tie-up between LeEco and Compal Electronics and the latter is open to set up an assembly line for other manufacturers, too. "But only if they have met our needs and have extra capacity to cater to other players", adds Jain.

Since its launch in January this year, LeEco claims to have sold one million handsets in India. Earlier the brand was only available online through ecommerce channel partners but is now selling through its own website (the company calls it LeMall) as well as offline retail. Currently, LeEco smartphones are available across 4,000 retail counters across the country, which the company will expand to 6,000. At the moment, offline is contributing to only 10 per cent of sales, which will be close to 40-50 per cent by the end of the next financial year.