XL Telecom to make motherboards

Secunderabad-based XL Telecom plans to start motherboard manufacturing within six months. Motherboards are the primary circuit boards that make up an electronic system.

XL Telecom manufactures jointing kits, solar panels and switch mode power supply units. The company is also an assembly partner of Kyocera Wireless Corp, a leading global manufacturer of CDMA wireless phones and devices. The Rs 297 crore company has entered into ethanol production as well.

"The motherboard will be manufactured at our existing Cherlapally plant near Hyderabad, and we plan to manufacture around 10,000 motherboards a day," said Dinesh Kumar, managing director, XL Telecom. "The investment has yet to be worked out, " Kumar added.

The proposed unit will not be a captive block for Kyocera handsets and the company, therefore, hopes to rope in more clients for various electronic products through this expansion. At present, the company sources all the components including mother board from abroad. These go into the making of a Kyocera handset.

XL Telecom has sold more than 1.8 million Kyocera handsets in the last few years. The handsets were also supplied to countries such as Pakistan, Nigeria, Maldives and Mauritius. Exports still form a small portion of the company's revenues.

The company is also entering into manufacturing of integrated fixed wireless terminal (IFWT) instruments.

"We have participated in an open tender and are expecting orders for four lakh instruments from BSNL by month-end," said Kumar.XL Telecom also has an ethanol production facility at Nanded in Maharashtra.

"We have already received orders worth Rs 120 crore from oil companies and trial orders from other companies are underway," he added. The facility has the capacity to produce 1,50,000 litres of ethanol per day. The company targets Rs 450 crore turnover by year-end.