OnePlus joins 'Make in India' bandwagon; partners Foxconn to manufacture phones in India

OnePlus will soon be manufacturing its smartphone in India, thus joining the 'Make in India' initiative. The company has partnered with popular contract manufacturer Foxconn for production of smartphones in the country.

OnePlus will soon start local production of its smartphones in India at the Foxconn Rising Stars factory within the Sri City Integrated Business City in the state of Andhra Pradesh. The first batch of OnePlus's 'Made in India' phones will be commercially available by the end of 2015.

The 30,000 sq. ft manufacturing facility will have a cumulative peek capacity of producing up to 500,000 units per month. Once the production starts, OnePlus should be able to fulfill the high demand for OnePlus smartphones in the country and also price it phones more competitively in India. The facility will also generate direct employment of over 1000 full time workers. OnePlus did not disclose the investments made.

Peter Lau, Founder & CEO, OnePlus said “Today is a big day for us. Producing smartphones in India is one of the most important decisions that we have made so far at OnePlus, and we are thankful to the Government of Andhra Pradesh and Foxconn for helping us make this happen. India being one of our biggest markets worldwide, we are committed to a long term sustainable growth path. This move will strengthen our presence and help us step up momentum in India.”

Vikas Agarwal, General Manager – India, OnePlus said “We are excited to add another significant chapter in our India journey as we look forward to starting local production of our smartphones within a year of our launch in the country. Local production will not only make our operations more efficient in terms of cost and working capital requirements but also help us in making our products available for sale much faster than ever before. Ever since OnePlus debuted in India, we have been deluged with requests for invites to buy our products, with more than 5 million registrations worldwide for our latest release – the OnePlus 2 – alone! With the best of our intentions of fastening up the availability process, we have been constrained by  a few supply chain related challenges in meeting consumer demands. The local production will help to address this issue and better cater to the fast growing demands for OnePlus products in India.”

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.