Moon Jae-in, President of South Korea, has taken a trip to India to open the world’s largest smartphone factory with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The new Samsung factory is situated just outside the country’s capital, New Delhi, and was built to satisfy the growing demand in the country for smartphone devices.
According to IDC in February this year, India saw a 14% annual growth in smartphone sales totalling 124 million units in 2017. IDC researchers pointed out that this means India has the fastest growing smartphone market among the top 20 smartphone markets globally.
Modi will be pleased with the opening too because he has been encouraging firms to set up factories in the country in order to boost domestic manufacturing. According to the South China Morning Post, India has attracted $62 billion of direct foreign investment in the last year, which is its highest ever.
The new factory will be able to produce 120 million smartphones every year and will make devices from across the whole of Samsung’s range of products including budget devices and the flagship models. India is currently the second-largest smartphone market after China, in 2016 there were about 360 million smartphone users, and by 2021 there are expected to be 780 million.
Source: SCMP