Flex to manufacture and service Huawei smartphones in India

Huawei today announced it will start manufacturing Honor smartphones in India in collaboration with Flex from first week of October.

Starting from first week of October 2016, the Flex manufacturing plant in Chennai will manufacture Honor 5A smartphones models in SKD (semi knocked down) format.

The plant will have the capacity to make three million smartphones by the end of 2017. In addition, Flex will also set up 45 branded Huawei service centres across India in the next 3 months timeframe. The service centres will be owned and operated by Flex for after market services.

Apart from Huawei, Flex also manufactures Lenovo and Motorola smartphones in India. The company also does manufacturing of automotive, energy and industrial electronics in Sriperumbudur and Hyderabad facility.

Flex has around 10,000 employees in India and plans to recruit 1,500 for Huawei manufacturing facility.

Announcing the manufacturing facility, Ravi Shankar Prasad, union minister, information & technology, law and justice, said, "I would like to congratulate Huawei on their commitment to pursue their 'Make in India' vision. The government of India is pleased to see so much enthusiasm for our "Make in India" initiative. We are working towards making India an electronic manufacturing hub.”

Jay Chen, CEO, Huawei India, said, "This year especially has been of significance in our India journey. We recently launched our world class GSC in Bengaluru and the start of manufacturing in India is an affirmation of our commitment to India and supports the Make in India campaign."

Adding further to the development, Peter Zhai, president, Huawei India Consumer Business Group stated, "We have been evaluating a manufacturing unit for a long time and have partnered with Flex given their legacy, expertise and knowledge in providing sketch to scale solutions to leading companies globally."

Commenting on the occasion, Jeff Reece, head, Flex Telecom segment said, "We are thrilled to expand our global partnership with Huawei. Our alliance with Huawei in India is a testament of our commitment towards boosting local manufacturing. It also further demonstrates our commitment to bring innovative supply chain solutions, high-quality advanced manufacturing and after-market services to Huawei and ultimately the consumers."