NEW DELHI : Samsung will start manufacturing laptops at its Noida facility this year, said TM Roh, the company’s president and head of mobile experience (MX) in an interaction. This move highlights India’s growing importance as a manufacturing hub for the Korean giant, which sees the country as its second largest manufacturing base.
Mint reported in September about Samsung’s laptop manufacturing plans.
Roh credited the supportive policies of the Indian government for Samsung’s expansion in the country. However, he noted that the global demand slowdown in 2023 necessitated some optimizations at its facilities. “Noida is the second largest base for Samsung. There may be some changes at the plant to optimize it according to the global demand, but what remains unchanged is the fact that it is an important base for us,” said Roh.
In August last year, India introduced restrictions on the import of laptops, tablets, servers and other items. That move aimed to reduce India’s dependence on imported IT hardware, aligning with the production-linked incentive (PLI) schemes for consumer electronics such as personal computers, laptops and tablets.
In May 2023, the government launched the renewed ₹17,000 crore PLI scheme for IT hardware to attract manufacturers of laptops, tablets, and other hardware to India, after the first version with a lower allocation failed to take off. India imports about $8 billion worth of laptops and tablets every year.
Relying on projections from global market research firms, Roh said that indicators suggest an increase in market growth of around 5% in 2024, which will bring the market back to 2022 levels, but noted the need for new features such as Galaxy AI, which is. AI on mobiles that will create new use cases among smart users and fuel demand in 2024.
He added that globally, replacement cycles are getting longer but at the same time an increasing number of consumers have bought high-quality products. Samsung intends to take advantage of the market trend by focusing on AI for mobile phones.
Samsung has a history of producing feature phones, smartphones, laptops and tablets in India. Roh said the company will continue to work with the government to strengthen manufacturing in India.
The country will also remain instrumental in developing Galaxy AI technology as the mainstay of state-of-the-art mobile technology, the senior executive said, while noting major contributions made by the R&D centers in Noida and Bangalore, in the software development towards optimizing AI for mobile phone, in demonstration of the AI interpretation and in the translation service.
“We intend to bring the Galaxy AI to around 100 million units within the year to provide more experiences and usability to the consumers and popularize the AI. We will continue to popularize new technologies as soon as possible, just like we did with, for example, LTE and 5G technology and foldable phones,” Roh said.
The company recently launched its flagship smartphone Galaxy S24, which has significant artificial intelligence capabilities. While the use of Galaxy AI has been kept free until the end of 2025, Roh said the company has yet to make a call to extend the plan beyond 2025 or start paying for it.
The flagship model is one of the latest products manufactured locally, and will become available for purchase from stores before the end of the month. Roh said the pre-orders for the flagship device in India were looking up.
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Published: 30 Jan 2024, 00:05 IST