Mi India Strengthens its Make in India Journey

Mi India has recently completed 5 years of it’s “Make in India” journey. Having been a committed partner in India’s manufacturing and growth story, producing smartphones and smart TVs locally is a significant step for the brand and has helped incorporate “Mi” into the fabric of the country.

One of the early adopters of the Honourable Prime Minister’s Make-in-India initiative, Mi India was earlier manufacturing all of it’s smartphones in India via it’s manufacturing partners: Foxconn and Flex. Mi India today announced that it has been ramping up its Indian smartphone manufacturing during the pandemic over the last 9 months:

a. It has onboarded two new manufacturing partners - DBG and BYD - for manufacturing smartphones in India. DBG has set up a smartphone manufacturing plant in Haryana, while BYD is setting up a plant in Tamil Nadu.

b. The new partnerships are expected to further increase Mi India’s manufacturing capacity in India. Mi India’s partnership with DBG has increased the brand’s monthly manufacturing capacity by about 20%. BYD India is also expected to contribute significantly to the production capacity once its operations begin by H1 of 2021.

c. Today Mi India manufactures more than 99% of its smartphones locally in India.

d. Mi India has also been ramping up local manufacturing and sourcing of smartphone components. Today majority of the components such as PCBA (mother-board), sub board, camera module, battery, back panel, USB cable, chargers, boxes and many more components are locally sourced or locally manufactured in India. All these components contribute to more than 75% of the value of smartphones.

e. These components are being manufactured by partners such as Sunny India, NVT, Salcomp, LY Tech, Sunvoda and many more.

Mi India launched smart TVs (under the brand of Mi TV) three years ago and has been the No. 1 smart TV brand for 10 consecutive quarters in India. It started it’s Make-in-India journey for smart TVs 2 years ago when it inaugurated a new factory in Tirupati with it’s manufacturing partner - Dixon Technology.

Company has already sold 3 Million units of Made-in-India smart TVs. During the pandemic, it further strengthened it’s smart TV local manufacturing:

a. It has on boarded a new manufacturing partner - Radiant Technology - for manufacturing smart TVs in India. Radiant Technology has set up a manufacturing plant in Telangana.

b. With the new manufacturing plant going live, 100% of the smart TVs sold by Mi India are now Made-in-India.

With the new manufacturing plants going live, the extended Mi India family has further grown to 60,000 people in India. In the year 2020, Mi India and it’s partners generated employment for 10,000 new individuals taking the entire workforce count to 60,000.

This 60,000 strong workforce has been built over the last six years since its inception in 2014 - and comprises partners from manufacturing, after sales, offline sales, logistics and corporate employees (team members exclusively working for Mi India).

The initiative underlines Mi India’s long-term commitment towards India and the government’s Make in India vision.

Speaking on the initiatives, Manu Kumar Jain, MD, Mi India said, “2020 was an exceptional year, the pandemic led to multiple challenges disrupting the entire global and India supply chain. Despite this, the Mi India team worked together to further expand our local supply chain and manufacturing capability. It is due to our continued expansion of our local production that today, we continue to maintain our leadership in the smartphone and smart TV market space and emerged as the most trusted smartphone brand.

Being committed to India’s growth, Mi India was one of the first adopters of the Honourable Prime Minister’s Make-in-India initiative, back in 2015. Today we are renewing our commitment by adding new manufacturing partners such as DBG and BYD for smartphones and Radiant technology for smart TVs. Now 99% of our smartphones and 100% of our smart TVs are manufactured in India and the majority of the components for smartphones will be locally manufactured or sourced from India. We hope to play a small role in building India as a global manufacturing hub. ”

He further added “In 2020, when organizations were downsizing their workforce, we were focused on putting together the building blocks for our growth in the India market – our employees. We generated employment for over 10,000 individuals in 2020. At Mi India, we encourage young professionals to take leadership roles. An astonishing number – 64% of our business leaders are under the age of 40. We are proud of our young and dynamic Mi India family that is willing to take risks, challenge the status quo, and most importantly – try new things.”

Elaborating on the partnership, Muralikrishnan B., COO, Mi India mentioned, “At Mi India, we have always believed in expanding the scale and reach of our Manufacturing & Supply chain capabilities and hence we are producing and excited with the addition of 2 new Smartphone manufacturing partners - DBG & BYD. DBG based in Bawal (near Gurgaon) gives us a manufacturing footprint in North India, while BYD India is headquartered in Chennai in the South.” He further added, “In the year 2020, we ramped up our manufacturing for smart TVs. Today, 100% of our Smart TVs are manufactured in India. We managed to move the needle from 85% to 100%. This has been made possible due to new partners like Radiant Appliances. In addition to increase in manufacturing capacity, Mi India has also scaled up its employment generation toy 20% to 60,000 which includes employees and third party manpower.”