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ACi to set up laptop unit in India
By siliconindia
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Wednesday, 07 July 2004, 19:30 IST
GANDHINAGAR: Allied Computers Industry (ACi) Plc will begin manufacturing laptops at its new plant in Gujarat from end-July, its chairman said on Monday.
UK-based Allied Computers will initially make its "Ethos" brand of laptops for the domestic and UK markets and will scale up production capacity to 50,000 units per month by March 2005.
The company's new unit, the first outside the UK, involves an investment of Rs 200 million ($4.4 million), he said.
Allied Computers will stop manufacturing notebooks in the UK by September 2005 and make them at the Indian unit, located at an Information technology park in Gandhinagar.
"This facility will help bring prices of notebook down even further and spark a massive boom in notebook market in all the companies of ACi's operations," said ACi's chairman Hirji Patel.
The firm plans to export laptops manufactured at Gandhinagar unit to the Middle East, Sri Lanka, South Africa and East Africa, the statement said.
Patel told a news conference that India's annual sales of branded laptops were likely to grow 55-60 per cent in 2004 from about 70,000 units last year. ACi was looking to garner a substantial share of the market, he said.
India's notebook market is currently dominated by international players such as International Business Machines Corp, Hewlett-Packard Co, Toshiba Corp and Dell Inc.