Asus Zenfones will now be made in India

Asus is the latest international smartphone maker to join the 'Make in India' initiative. The company announced that it is going to start loccal manufacturing of its smartphone in the country.

The Taiwanese company has partnered with Foxconn, a popular manufacturer to make smartphones in India. It will be producing its devices at the manufacturing facility at Sri City, Andhra Pradesh.

The first Asus smartphones to be manufactured is the ZenFone 2 Laser, follows by the ZenFone Go. The company aims to manufacture 150,000 units of ZenFone smartphones per month by the end of the financial year which will account for almost 80% sales in India.

“India offers us a huge opportunity as smartphone penetration is just 10%. We are excited to announce our local manufacturing facility that will cater to the growing demands of the market. The Indian government’s focus on ‘Make in India’ has opened a plethora of opportunities for international companies. It is an opportune time to make the announcement as it will enable us to bring our cutting edge products to consumers who are looking for features and design sensibilities of a high-end smartphone at an economic price. We are aggressively targeting the Indian market. We aim to achieve 5% market share in the country by next year and empower all our customers with luxury.” Said the company in a press release.

Asus says that it is aggressively targeting the Indian market and aim to achieve 5% market share in the country by next year. By manufacturing its devices in India, Asus aims to bring features of high end smartphone onto a device at an economic price.

India is one of the fastest growing smartphone markets globally, and is expected to overtake the U.S as the second-largest smartphone market in the next few year. As per data by Research firm IDC, shipments in India grew 44% to 26.5 million units in April-June. 

Over the past few month, Xiaomi (Redmi Prime), Motorola (Moto E 2nd gen) and Gionee have started assembling their handsets in India. International smartphone makers including vivo, HTC, Sony, Microsoft, LG, Lenovo have already announced plans to kickstart smartphone manufacturing in India.

PTI