In the wake of regulatory headaches, three public policy executives of Samsung India have quit, news agency Reuters reported on Tuesday. This comes in the wake of the central government's push for local manufacturing and stronger regulations on tech companies.
The three executives who resigned from Samsung's India public policy team are Binu George, who looked at corporate affairs and strategy, Surabhi Pant who worked on policy and public affairs and Nikhil Kaura from the same team, the Reuters report added, citing two sources.
However, regulations that could affect the smartphone sector include the central government's plans to order the removal of pre-installed apps under proposed new security rules and a drive to get companies to make devices compatible with a homegrown navigation system that rivals the US Global Positioning System (GPS).
Meanwhile, Samsung's top executive recently said that the company will invest in setting up smart manufacturing capabilities at its mobile phone plant in Noida. Samsung Electronics President and Head of Mobile eXperience Business, TM Roh was quoted as saying by news agency PTI that the company will continue to invest in research and development facilities in the country.
"We will continue our investment to bring the optimised and or smart factory to the Noida facilities. We will continue our investment there. I believe that our investment for the smart factory will bring competitiveness in the production," Roh said.
In 1996, Samsung opened a manufacturing and R&D facility in India, that presently employs about 70,000 people. Samsung currently operates the second-largest manufacturing facility in the world in Noida, and its largest R&D facility is in Bengaluru, India. Samsung has around 10,000 employees at its R&D centres across India, out of which the largest base of close to 3,500 is located at its Bengaluru centre. The company began producing its high-end Galaxy S23 series in India this year.
"We have the biggest research and development centre here. For the new innovation we will continue our investment in this area," Roh recently said.