Samsung to double smartphone production in India

In hopes of keeping up with demand, Samsung plans on expanding its production plant in India with the help of a large investment — 40 billion rupees. The tech giant will double the size of its factory located in Noida, Uttar Pradesh to 240,000 square meters.

Once completed, it will be able to produce a total of ten million smartphones per month, up from five million. According to BusinessKorea, the groundbreaking ceremony will take place in a few days time, on June 7 to be exact. Unfortunately, there’s no word on when the factory will be completed.

Samsung has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the factory expansion with the Uttar Pradesh state government in October 2016. Back then, the company said that it plans on spending 19.7 billion rupees to expand the plant, but has apparently now decided to double the investment.

Samsung is currently the biggest manufacturer in terms of sales in India. The company clearly sees a bright future for itself in the country, despite the fact it’s having a hard time competing against Chinese brands that offer smartphones with a better price-performance ratio. These include Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo, among a few others.

The company’s market share in India in the first quarter of 2017 was three percentage points lower when compared with the same period a year ago — 27 percent. Meanwhile, Chinese manufacturers have increased their combined market share from 27 percent in Q1 2016 to 50 percent in Q1 2017.

If this trend will continue, Samsung’s sales in India just might decrease even further in the near future. Based on the large investment, the company probably doesn’t think this will happen.