Xiaomi, a popular Chinese smartphone maker has officially announced that it will be setting up 3 new smartphone plants in the country. The company also confirmed that it will inaugurate first surface mount technology plant in Chennai for manufacturing printed circuit board assembly units in India. The Indian government recently imposed a 10% tax on imports on key smartphone components including PCBs. Manu Jain, Vice President, Xiaomi Global and Managing Director, Xiaomi India made an official confirmation at its first-ever "Supplier Investment Summit" held in Delhi today. Over 50 global smartphone component suppliers attended the 3-day summit with an aim to help the company in setting up local manufacturing units in India.

He said that, "Xiaomi's high-quality, well-designed products at honest prices have been instrumental in disrupting the Indian smartphone industry. I believe we will continue to play a key role in transforming India into a global manufacturing hub".

The company stated that if all the suppliers set up base in the country, it would bring in an investment of more than Rs. 15,000 as well as creating job for at least 50,000 people. The company will set up these plants in partnership with Foxconn that will be located at Siri City (AP) and Sriperumbudur (TN).

Moreover, the plants with Foxconn now employ over 10,000 people with more than 95 percent are women. Xiaomi has emerged as one of the pioneers in India for starting local assembly of PCBAs with the new SMT plant in Chennai which is dedicated for local manufacturing of PCBA units that is an important component of the smartphone contributing approximately 50 percent of the smartphone value.

The smartphone maker is looking to ramp up its PCBA production for its locally manufactured smartphones by Q3, 2018. Xiaomi is currently number one player in the online smartphone space with 57 percent market share and number 2 in terms of offline sales with 11.2 percent market share. However, the overall market share of the company stands at 26.8 percent according to Q4 IDC Quarterly Smartphone Tracker 2017).

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 09, 2018 02:26 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).