After Micromax and Celkon Mobiles, it is the turn of Karbonn Mobiles to announce plans to set up a mobile handset manufacturing facility in Hyderabad.

As Indian Cellular Association (ICA) pitching for a strong mobile manufacturing base in the country, Karbonn Mobiles has firmed up its plan to set up a facility in Hyderabad. The firm has pegged an investment of ₹450 crore on the manufacturing facility that can produce two million phones a month.

“We already have two assembly units in the country in Bengaluru and Noida. But there is not much value addition. What we are planning is a manufacturing facility. We, as part of ICA team, met Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhara Rao to discuss the possibility of setting up a mobile manufacturing hub. His response to our proposal was positive,” Sudhir Hasija, Chairman at Karbonn, said.

When ICA mooted the idea of establishing a hub, the Chief Minister asked them to come out with a concrete proposal. The association is in the process of preparing a proof of concept for the hub.

“We are No. 4 smartphone player in the country. We are confident of coming back at the third rank soon,” he told BusinessLine over phone after his recent meeting with the Chief Minister.

The company, which made a turnover of ₹4,300 crore in the financial year 2014-15, has 900 service centres and sold through 85,000 retail outlets.

JV with Chinese firm



“We are going to formalise a joint venture with a Chinese firm to set up the manufacturing facility in Telangana. We expect the facility to be operational in 12-18 months,” he said.

Asked about funding for the project, he said the firm would raise funds internally and no plans to raise funds from outside. Part of the capacity at the plant would go to produce feature (basic) phones, while the focus would be on smartphones.