Make in India: Samsung to Start Manufacturing TV Sets in India by December

New Delhi: In a boost to Make in India, Samsung India, the country’s largest consumer electronics and smartphone maker, will start local manufacturing of TV sets by December 2020. According to a report in the Economic Times, the consumer electronics maker has written to the government seeking permission to import TV sets till December 2020 to ensure that ‘business continuity’ is not drastically impacted in the festive season.

According to the publication, Samsumg in a letter written to IT and electronics minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, on September 28 said that maintaining the “current threshold volumes is pivotal for setting up of the domestic TV manufacturing facility.”

Worth mentioning here is that the government had put television sets on the restricted list of imports for the first time in 20 years on July 30, as part of its strategy to discourage imports from China and boost local manufacturing. Companies now need licences to import TV sets and so far the government has not issued any such permit.

Samsung in its letter to the minister said the import impediments were “against the ethos of ease of doing business”, and imports held at customs were impacting business. “As we are setting up the TV manufacturing plant by December 2020, we request for smooth operations and business continuity.” ET has reviewed the letter. Two industry executives told the business daily that Samsung has also written to the Prime Minister’s Office and Directorate General of Foreign Trade.

Earlier, Samsung had a manufacturing plant in Chennai. But the company shut it down in 2018 after the government imposed import duties on open cell television panels — a critical component which accounts for 65-70% of the total manufacturing cost. Since it became expensive to make TVs in India, the Korean company started importing televisions from Vietnam at zero duty through the free trade agreement route.

The publication citing company executives said Samsung will re-establish its television plant at Chennai where the line is already present but requires modernisation and manpower.

However, the company will continue to import the high-end models like 75-inches and above which is a miniscule portion of total sales. At present Samsung is manufacturing some TV models in India through contract manufacturer Dixon since early this year.

The company has said the local plant will drastically reduce India’s import dependency in the sector by catering to the majority of the domestic market and limiting imports to extremely high end and low volume products.

Source: ToI