Xiaomi ropes in 2 new smartphone manufacturing partners in India

Xiaomi already has three manufacturing plants in India in partnership with Foxconn and Flex spread across Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.

New Delhi: Hit by supply chain disruptions during the global pandemic, Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi on Thursday said it has hired two new smartphone manufacturing partners, BYD and DBG in India to set up factories in the country, thereby pushing its “Make in India” drive to the next level.

The DBG manufacturing facility is already operational in Haryana and the BYD facility in Tamil Nadu will be completed within the first half of this year, said Manu Kumar Jain, Managing Director, Xiaomi India.

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Xiaomi already has three manufacturing plants in India in partnership with Foxconn and Flex spread across Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.

“With these two new smartphone manufacturing partners, we now have presence across northern and southern parts of the country,” Jain told IANS.

“With the DBG factory going live we expect our production capacity to increase by about 20 per cent within this quarter. This factory went live two months ago. The BYD factory should be operational within the first half of this year and we expect the capacity to further increase,” he said.

The Xiaomi India MD said that the new manufacturing facilities will help the biggest smartphone seller in the country to meet the “massive demand” and help the company stay protected in case of any future supply chain disruptions in situations like a pandemic or other such events.

He said that majority of the smartphone components are also now locally manufactured in India or locally sourced, including the PCBA (Printed Circuit Board Assembly), battery, sub-board and chargers, among other components.

“If you add all of this together then approximately 75 per cent of the phone is already covered from a value perspective,” he said, adding that the company is also working with partners to manufacture the camera panel locally in India.

“Total number of people working in our smartphone factories as part of the Xiaomi family has gone up to 30,000.”

In addition to these two new smartphone manufacturing partners, Xiaomi also added one new TV manufacturing partner Radiant which is based in Telangana.

“We are now locally manufacturing 100 per cent our TVs sold in India,” Jain said.

Xiaomi started TV manufacturing in India in partnership with Dixon Technologies about two years ago.

About 1,000 people are working across these two factories, Xiaomi said.

The number of people working with Xiaomi and its partners who are exclusively working for Xiaomi products have gone from 50,000 last year to 60,000 now, Jain said.