Xiaomi joins Make in India brigade

BANGALORE, INDIA: Chinese smartphone maker, Xiaomi today launched its first locally assembled smart phone in India- Redmi 2 Prime.

The company has also joined the govt's Make in India drive with this. The smartphones major has teamed up with Taiwanese contract manufacturer, Foxconn to start a manufacturing and assembling unit in Sri City, Andhra Pradesh.

This also marks the comeback of Foxconn in India, which shut shop in India last year after its client Nokia stopped making phones.

Xiaomi, however, will continue to import components from China for some time as it will take some time to procure components locally, said the company's global vice president Hugo Barra.

"Manufacturing smartphones locally is a significant step towards incorporating Xiaomi into the fabric of India in the years to come. Thanks to Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s visionary plan to transform India into an attractive destination for manufacturing, we have a great opportunity to make our products in India, bringing us even closer to Indian consumers and contributing to India’s evolution in the technology sector," said he.

The India facility is set up primarily to meet the demands locally, and not for exports.

Xiaomi and Foxconn have two other similar kind of manufacturing facility in Brazil and China.