New Delhi: South Korean handset major Samsung is likely to shift focus towards manufacturing more smartphones in India as the company is mulling to reduce dependency on Vietnam for the production of new handsets. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and a sharp increase in manufacturing costs in Vietnam are said to be the reason why Samsung decided to restructure its manufacturing strategy.
According to a report in South Korea's The Elec, the company is mulling a restructuring process and once post the rejig, Vietnam will still account for 50 per cent of its smartphone production. However, the share of devices manufactured in India will increase to 29 per cent. Samsung currently manufactures more than 65 million smartphones in India.
The production capacity of Indonesia will see a marginal increase to 6 per cent.
According to the report, Samsung has earmarked a total of $140 million to facilitate this change in manufacturing with $90 million earmarked for India and $50 million headed to Indonesia.
Samsung India had opened the world's largest mobile factory in Sector 81 in Noida, Uttar Pradesh in 2018.
During the launch, Samsung India had said it will double its current capacity for mobile phones in Noida from 68 million units a year to 120 million units a year, in a phase-wise expansion. The smartphone major has been manufacturing mobile phones in India since 2007.
Samsung India has been populating Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) right from its inception and is aligned with the Indian government's Phased Manufacturing Programme (PMP) goals.