Mobile handset company iVoomi is looking at investing around Rs 180 crore this year to rev up manufacturing activities locally, set up supply chain and boost working capital. "For 2018, We are planning to invest USD 30 million (about Rs 190 crore) in terms of manufacturing, research and development, supply chain and working capital. This is very much required. It will happen in next one or two quarters.
Basically, we are looking at 2018-19 timeline," iVoomi chief executive Ashwin Bhandari told PTI. He said the company has partnered with electronics manufacturing service firm Hipad Technology to make its mobile devices in India. "We have already set up assembly line where components on mother board of iVoomi devices will be mounted with fully robotic process and involve only 4-5 labourers," Bhandari said. He said the company has already invested around USD 26 million (around Rs 160 crore) in last 12 months to set up office and team in India and the next investment of USD 30 million is an additional investment. "We are looking at 4 per cent market share in Indian smartphone segment by the end of 2018. I see this happening positively. We are going to launch health band with pollution indicator soon, voice controlled speaker, face recognition enabled smartphones that are going to push our sales," Bhandari said. iVoomi makes low cost 4G smartphones in the range of Rs 4000-Rs 10,000 a unit and plans to push sales accessories from March. "We are now making 98 per cent of our smartphones locally that we sell in India. We have already started shipping 'made in India' phones to Nepal. Now we are looking to ship made in India smartphones to Dubai. By 2020, we will start exporting to more countries from India," Bhandari said.
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