On the outskirts of the national capital, a Rs 1,000 crore electronics plant is slowly rising ground up, aiming at a late monsoon launch. Perhaps larger, in size and scope, than its big budget investment would be the ambition that is fuelling it — to do a ‘Make in India’ model that can take on nothing less than China’s dominance as the factory to the world.
And no, there is no PLI, the production-linked incentive offered by the Indian government to kickstart local manufacturing, involved.
Ekkaa, a Haryana-based third-party manufacturer of LED TVs aims to do with its OEM/ODM model what China has been doing for decades — manufacture to specifications, and at a very affordable scale, electronics products for various brands big and small. So far, the company had limited itself to primarily making LED TVs for local Indian brands as per their requirement, clocking Rs 600 crore in revenues last year. But all that will change soon once the new plant gets operational.
Ekkaa’s vision? A state-of-the-art plant that will make TVs, washing machines, speakers, wearables and even commercial display screens for brands local and international. The ambition is unbridled — beat China at its own game.
“The new facility at Noida will be the largest in terms of capacity in the country, with a potential to ramp up to nine lakh units per month in the next three years,” claimed Sagar Gupta, director of Ekkaa Electronics.
The company claims to cater to 150 Indian TV manufacturers, mostly local brands who want affordable TVs to sell to their demographics in various parts of the country. But with the new plant, the aim is to play China to emerging nations, starting with taking orders from Africa and the Gulf and, as a company statement hopes, “over a period of time, to Europe and USA as well.”
Taking the Modi government’s vision of ‘Make in India’ and ‘vocal for local’ one step further are companies like Ekkaa and Aequs, the latter trying a similar model with electronic toys and consumer durables.
The reasoning is simple — to make use of India’s demographic and cost factor advantage even as China’s ‘factory to the world’ status is under threat post-Covid, not just with nations of the world looking at alternative options, but also, as Gupta put it, “China is pricing itself out of the market as living standards get higher and the cost of manufacturing in the mainland gets pricier.”
India is aiming to hit 300 billion dollars in electronics manufacturing by 2026.