India - Fastest Growing Base for Mobile Manufacturing
(26/06/2007, BWCS Staff)
From a slow start, mobile manufacturing in India is beginning to take off and may soon rival China as a base for low-cost handset production. According to US research group Gartner, in the last 12 months alone, the number of units produced in India has soared by 68%. The subcontinent is forecast to have the highest growth in mobile manufacturing again this year. The first factories for mobile phones were not established in India until 2005. Since then however, growing demand at home coupled with a relatively cheap labour force, has seen production increase dramatically. In 2006, Gartner reports that India produced nearly 31 million mobile phones, with a street value of US$5 billion. This year, the company believes that the figure will grow to nearly 95 million handsets. Over the next five years Gartner says that the Indian market will see a compound annual growth rate in terms of mobile phone production of 25%.
The rampaging growth of demand for mobile connections in India is driving the demand for home-based mobile manufacturers. India is the fastest growing mobile market in the world, with a further 6.57 million mobile subscribers signing up for services last month alone. At the beginning of June 2007 the sub-continent was home to 178 million mobile users.
In April 2005 Finnish company elcoteq was the first company to set up a telecoms manufacturing unit in Bangalore. Korean giants LG and Samsung quickly followed suit, before market leader Nokia also got in on the act in 2006. However, Nokia has begun to export mobile phones from its plant near Chennai (Madras) to the Gulf States and Africa. In addition there are a few locally branded phone vendors and manufacturers such as Spice, Usha Lexus, and BPL that are either manufacturing locally or import the handsets.
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