Samsung India Electronics Ltd, a subsidiary of the $36-billion Korean electronics giant Samsung, is investing $35 million over the next five years to set up a colour monitor manufacturing facility at Noida, near New Delhi. The facility will be used to manufacture both 'SyncMaster' and 'Samtron' colour monitor brands in the country in 14, 15 and 17-inch screen sizes.
The company will be investing $10 million in the first phase and subsequently another $25 million till 2005 to expand the capacity of the plant.
"In the first phase of its operations till 2001, the plant will have a capacity of 1 million units and will cater to the domestic market.
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Subsequently, by the year 2005, the capacity of the plant will be enhanced to 4 million units with fresh investments," Samsung Electronics display division executive vice-president and general manager G S Choi said.
The increased capacity will be used for exports, he added. Samsung Electronics, which claims to be a world leader in colour monitors with a 20 per cent market share, is targeting global colour monitor sales turnover of $20 million this year. Construction work of this factory is expected to begin this month and will be ready for production by June 2001.
India is the seventh location after the UK, China, Korea, Mexico, Malaysia and Brazil where the chaebol has set up a manufacturing unit for colour monitors.
Samsung Electronics vice-chairman and chief executive officer Jong Yong Yun, who is visiting India on the occasion of completion of five years of Samsung operations in the country, said: "Samsung's vision for India includes deeply-rooting itself in the Indian consumer electronics and information technology industry (IT), complementing the Indian software skills with Samsung's hardware expertise and contributing to the development of India as an 'IT superpower'."
He added that the group is planning to expand operations in India to include businesses and products other than the ones which are currently present in India. The new products launched in the present fiscal include digital television, IMT-2000 equipment and printers. Yun added that the company will focus on printers in India 'in a big way'.
The Indian arm is targeting to clock a turnover of Rs 2,100 crore for the current fiscal and the projected profits for the present fiscal stand at about 60 crore. The company officials claim that the brand awareness has grown from 47 per cent in 1996 to about 90 per cent. The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is estimated to be a healthy 55 per cent. According to company's estimates, its market share in colour monitors in India for the second quarter stands at 45 per cent. The company's target for 2001 is pegged at 50 per cent.