Lava set to double factory budget to Rs 1,200 crore

NEW DELHI: Lava International has doubled its budget for a proposed local factory to Rs 1,200 crore, to be spent over three years. The nation’s fourth largest smartphone vendor also plans to double workforce, expand to markets such as Indonesia and Mexico, and make acquisitions in the fiscal year that just began. “We aim to become a 100,000-employee company,” cofounder and managing director Hari Om Rai told ET. Creating so many jobs can be possible only by starting full-scale manufacturing, he said, without giving a timeframe to meet headcount target. The company that sells devices under Lava and Xolo brands employs more than 6,500 employees, and plans to add 7,000 more this fiscal.

One of the key areas where it will add employees is manufacturing. “We already have hired 586 employees for manufacturing,” Rai said. The company recently appointed a chief manufacturing officer, who is focusing on starting Lava's domestic production while augmenting its manufacturing facilities.

Rai said the company is talking to the state governments of Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh to set up a factory.

It currently assembles devices using imported components and also imports some models as fully built units. Lava is investing Rs 50 crore in an assembly unit in Noida. It also has another facility in Noida to handle repairing.