Back in September when Huawei announced plans to manufacture 3 million smartphones a year at a plant in India, it sparked fears in the Chinese media that a new phase of competition between India and China was on the horizon – and along with it, large scale job cuts in the latter.
Huawei, one of China’s biggest telecom companies, was just the latest in a wave of Chinese smartphone vendors to set up production facilities in the country – one of the most promising mobile markets in the world.
India attracted investment from 37 mobile manufacturers in the past year, more than half a dozen of which were Chinese handset makers, according to industry sources. Just prior to Huawei’s announcement, Xiaomi had revealed plans to set up two manufacturing plants in the country, while upstart brands like Gionee, LeEco, Oppo, Vivo, Meizu, OnePlus, and Coolpad have also announced they will be setting up facilities. Meanwhile, a slew of Chinese handset component makers – including Holitech, Wingtech and Camera King – are also reported to be weighing their options in India.
India’s vast, but still largely untapped, market is its greatest allure.
“With more than 1 billion mobile phone users, India is the second largest smartphone market in the world [after China], but the share of smartphone users is only around 250 million. This explains why so many global smartphone brands are [queuing up] in India,” said Atul Jain, COO of LeEco, India.