Huawei is planning to manufacture its smartphones in India. Huawei currently has a facility in Chennai, which is being used to manufacture telecom network equipment for the Indian market. The company got the home ministry's approval to set up a unit to produce electronic or telecom hardware and support services, including trading and logistics activities, at the SIPCOT Special Economic Zone in Tamil Nadu in July.
"We have started seriously evaluating about local products. We are discussing domestic manufacturing internally," said Zhao Gang, vice president of Huawei's Honor International Business. He was speaking on the sidelines of an event in New Delhi to launch the Honor 7 smartphone this week.
India is the most important market for the Honor smartphone brand globally and more than 300 engineers at the company's research centre in Bengaluru are currently working on Huawei Honor handsets. Huawei's Bengaluru Research & Development center is its largest outside China. The facility houses 3,000 of the about 7,000 engineers it employs globally.
Huawei's Honor brand sold 20 million handsets globally last year, and its target is to double that number this year. The Honor phones are currently available in India only on the e-commerce website Flipkart. The company plans to soon start selling the brand through offline retailers as well. Huawei has earmarked Rs 65 crore this year to establish the Honor brand in the country.
Over the past six months, the company has formed a number of tie-ups with companies like Freecharge, Paytm and CouponDunia under its Honor League programme to offer deals and offers to its customers.
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