President and CEO of Samsung (Southwest Asia) H.C. Hong gestures while addressing attendees during the inauguration of the Samsung’s world’s largest mobile experience centre “Samsung Opera House” in Bangalore on September 11, 2018. (Photo by MANJUNATH KIRAN / AFP) (Photo credit should read MANJUNATH KIRAN/AFP via Getty Images)
Samsung, which once led India’s smartphone market, is investing $500 million in its India operations to set up a manufacturing plant to produce displays at the outskirts of New Delhi.
The company disclosed the investment and its plan in a filing to the local regulator earlier this month. The South Korean giant said the plant would produce displays for smartphones as well as a wide range of other electronics devices.
In the filing, the company disclosed that it would be using some land for the new plant from its existing factory in Noida.
In 2018, Samsung opened a factory in Noida that it claimed was the world’s largest mobile manufacturing plant. For that factory, the company had committed about $700 million.
The new factory should help Samsung further increase its capacity to produce smartphone components locally and access a range of tax benefits New Delhi offers.
Those benefits would come in handy to the company as it faces off Xiaomi, the Chinese smartphone vendor that put an end to Samsung’s lead in India.
Samsung is now the second-largest smartphone player in India, which is the world’s second-largest market with nearly 500 million smartphone users. The company in recent months has also lost market share to Chinese brand Realme, which is poised to take over Samsung in the quarter that ended in December last year, according to research firms.
TechCrunch has reached out to Samsung for comment.
