Inventec Corp (英業達) yesterday said that its manufacturing plant in India is to become operational next year, while its planned investment in an Indonesia factory is suspended for the time being due to a lack of demand.
“The plant in India is to be our main focus on expanding overseas production capacity next year,” Inventec chairman Richard Lee (李詩欽) told reporters on the sidelines of an annual meeting of the Cloud Computing Association (台灣雲端運算產業協會) in Taiwan.
The company has invested more than NT$30 million (US$910,470) in the Indian plant and plans to increase the investment there next year, Lee said, adding that the board of the firm has not finalized the investment amount.
Lee said the Indian plant could produce a wide range of products, such as notebooks, tablets and smartphones.
Inventec completed the construction of the plant and recruited more than 100 local managerial employees, Inventec chief financial officer Yu Chin-pao (游進寶) said.
Lee said more emerging markets, including India, require foreign companies to increase local production or the companies would face heavy import tariffs.
“To build a manufacturing plant in India is to help our clients save costs by producing and shipping their products to the local market,” Lee said.
Lee in August said that Inventec was going to build a manufacturing plant with one of its major smartphone products clients in Indonesia, but yesterday he said the firm suspended the plan.
“After discussions with our client, we do not think demand is strong enough to have a plant in Indonesia. We will focus on India,” he said.
Yu said Inventec’s core business this quarter is expected to be flattish from last quarter, adding that the main uncertainty is non-operating factors.
“The core business is steady, but we are cautiously monitoring the fluctuation of yuan and the New Taiwan dollar against the US dollar, which would affect the firm’s overall performance,” Yu said.
The company chairman said a shipments forecast of 100 million devices this year — up from last year’s 70 million units — has been revised to an estimated 90 million devices, because of a weaker-than-expected international economy.
Lee said Inventec still aims to ship 100 million devices next year on the back of new orders for wearable devices and the increasing demand for smartphones and servers.
He said the outlook of Inventec’s PC segment is better than this year, but remains challenging due to industry headwinds.
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