Flextronics lines up India foray

By agencies   |   Monday, 31 July 2006, 19:30 IST
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NEW DELHI: Contract manufacturing market for PCs in India is estimated at $20 billion. To have a share in the potential of this Indian Market, Singapore-based contract manufacturing company Flextronics Corporation plans to get chip from its JV partner SemIndia and manufacture computers in SEZ at Chennai. It has been noticed that Zenith and Millennium may also be the potential companies, under consideration. The discussions regarding the venture, is likely to start by the end of August, but currently the company is negotiating with domestic vendors for branding the PC. “We are setting up mechanical facility, tooling capability and sheet metal facility. We will assemble the PCs and manufacture the body and the mouldings for the PC and the laptops. We are looking at SemIndia as the long term source for the chips and domestic vendors for branding,” a Flextronics executive informed. Amidst the negotiations, it has come to light that Patni Computer Systems and Sahara computers have chosen Flextronics as their contract manufacturer. According to experts, the SemIndia-Flextronics partnership is expected to support the government’s agenda to increase PC penetration in the country, from about 14 per 1,000 and with a target at 65 per 1000 by 2010. This comes as a boon, for the central government, which has a 26% stake in the SemIndia-AMD consortium. Sources have informed, the company would be looking at a total capacity of about 40,000-50,000 units (of computers) per month. The entire raw materials would be the responsibility of the vendors. Flextronics would, only charge, about Rs 800-1,000 per PC as fee from each vendor depending on the configuration.