NEW DELHI: China ’s Vivo plans to pump in Rs 7,500 crore over the next few years to sharply expand its production capacities, initially for the India market and later for exports, making it among the largest investments into local manufacturing by any smartphone maker.Having previously invested over Rs 400 crore into building manufacturing capacities, the country’s third largest smartphone player after Xiaomi and Samsung aims to quadruple its present local production capacity of 25 million phones a year, to more than 100 million devices, part of which could also be exported.“We foresee India being an important strategic market for us, so we are increasing our investment from Rs 4,000 crore to Rs 7,500 crore, which will be done over a few years,” Nipun Marya, director of brand strategy at Vivo India, told ET.“This (investment) will create over 40,000 jobs in the market over the next 10 years,” he added. Vivo presently has about 7,500 employees dedicated to manufacturing locally.The new manufacturing plants for the company backed by China’s BBK Electronics will come up in Greater Noida , where it has taken 169 acres last year, which will house more sophisticated equipment, including surface mounting technology (SMT) lines to make high end and high-quality phones.The Uttar Pradesh region has become a hub for mobile phone manufacturing, including one by Samsung which recently invested nearly Rs 5,000 crore to double its production capacities.To be done in phases, the first set of expansion for Vivo will be completed by September which will add 8.4 million units to take the company’s total phone making capacity to 33.4 million annually. The first phase will also add over 2,500 jobs, taking the total number of people employed at the company’s manufacturing sites to about 10,000.Marya added that the company has been growing at 40-50% on-year by units shipped, much faster than the market, since it entered India in 2014, and is projecting its own pace of growth to continue in the coming years, prompting its aggressive plans to expand its manufacturing base.Vivo, which has bet on an aggressive offline strategy for growth, doubled its market share in India to 12% in June quarter this year from 6% a year ago, as per CMR data, keeping at bay its rival Chinese firms Oppo and Realme. The local production could also cater to export markets in the future, however, Marya did not put a time frame for this feat.“We’re running at full capacity and all the production is meeting domestic demand. The expansion will also be directed to fulfil local consumption but if there’s excess capacity we can export as well,” he added.The latest investment is separate from what the company is making on its 70,000-plus retail outlets and over 600 company-owned and operated service centers across the country.