The US-based Sanmina-SCI Corporation, a leader in electronic manufacturing services, would increase the headcount at its Chennai unit from 1,500 to 10,000 over a period of five years, a top company official said.
The company has invested Rs 250 crore for the facility at SIPCOT Industrial Park, at Oragadam near here, its 18th facility globally, Sammina-SCI Chairman Jure Sola told reporters here.
The unit was inaugurated by Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister M K Stalin today.
The company had already recruited 1,500 people, 80 per cent of them locals, for the facility, and would scale up the headcount to 10,000 over a period of five years, Sola said.
"When we signed the MoU with the Tamil Nadu government in June 2007, we proposed to invest Rs 225 crore and to provide employment to 1,300 people in this facility. But, investments made so far have already crossed Rs 250 crore," he said.
SANMINA, engaged in the business of providing solutions in areas like communications, computing and storage, defence and aerospace, medical equipment, renewable energy and multi-media in its other facilities, would also focus on the same verticals in Chennai unit, SANMINA-SCI Chief Operating Officer Hari Pillai said.
Pillai said the company on an average would produce products worth $400-500 million annually at the Chennai facility and would predominantly cater to the "domestic market".
Declining to give out details on the revenue expected from the unit, Coimbatore-born Pillai said the Indian electronics hardware market was expected to grow at a CAGR of 9.7 per cent every year.
"Not only the market potential we have got here but the talented manpower available also gives an opportunity to grow," he said.
Currently, in value terms the Indian market size was expected to reach $125 billion in 2013 and the global market size was expected to reach $2 trillion, he said.
To a query, Pillai said the company may not enter into any partnership with any Indian company for supplying products to the defence and aerospace sectors. "Our customer will partner with an Indian company and through this mode, we have already shipped defence products from Chennai facility," he said.
In addition, the company under its Research and Development wing may enter into partnerships with educational institutions in Tamil Nadu. "If it is required we will partner with institutions for collaboration," he said adding they have recently 'ramped up' their R&D facility at the Madras Export Processing Zone (MEPZ) near here.
Reacting to Stalin's request that the company should consider setting up their Printed Circuit Board (PCB) manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu, Pillai later told PTI that plan was in their roadmap for India. "It is too early to comment on that.. But definitely it is in one of our plans in India...," he said.
Stalin also assured the government's support and cooperation for setting up the PCB unit.
