Vivo India’s Expansion Plans On Track
India’s third-largest smartphone maker, Vivo, a company of Chinese origin, says it will spend Rs. 7,500 crore over the next few years to expand its production capacity to 33.4 million units per annum. In the process, the company plans to hire over 2,000 people, to add to its already large workforce of 10,000 in India.
The Chinese smartphone maker has already pumped in Rs. 400 crore for building a greenfield facility at Greater Noida, which has an annual capacity of 25 million units per annum.
Nipun Marya, Director - Brand Strategy, Vivo Mobile India told BW Businessworld, “The smartphone penetration in India is just around 30-40% while half of the population is below 30 years of age. For all practical purposes, India is a growing and important market.” Is there a potential to grow? “Yes, there is,” he says. Is it important to Vivo? “Yes, it is,” says Marya.
“Interestingly, a lot of our sales are also coming from tier 2 and tier 3 cities,” he adds.
On expansion plans, Marya says, “We have been deeply entrenched in the make-in-India programme. We have now firmed up our plans in expanding our manufacturing facility and investing Rs.7,500 crore which will span over some time. We are already employing 10,000 people as of today in our mobile phone factories.”
Vivo India also hinted that it will be getting into product lines which has backward linkages with smartphones. “As we are preparing ourselves for 5G, we will also get into allied devices,” maintained Marya.
However, Marya maintained that Vivo will not be catering to the bottom of the pyramid. Currently, as far the technology is concerned and the prices are concerned, the lowest model we can go to is Rs. 7,000 or Rs. 7,500,” says Marya.
When asked to shed some light on the USP of its product lines, Marya affirmed, “The Vivo V series has always been a game-changer and are known for disruptive innovations in India. For example, V17 Pro being the first 32 MP dual pop u camera and first in-display fingerprint scanning, V9 at that time dual camera bokeh mode and before that 24MP moonlight selfie. Talking about V17, it has the world’s tiniest punch-hole display, has low-light or night capability and also has excellent display features. What we take a lot of pride in the fact that despite being innovation-driven, the prices of our products are not like 50,000 or 60,000.
