AP to be mobile handset manufacturing hub

    Andhra Pradesh has tremendous potential to be the leader in mobile handset manufacturing in the country and the State government is committed to creating a complete ecosystem with design, manufacturing and delivery, according to State IT Minister Nara Lokesh. He was speaking at the State sector session on ‘Electronics - promoting innovation and entrepreneurship in electronics hardware with Andhra Pradesh as the epicentre’ here on the concluding day of the CII Partnership Summit on Monday.

“Before 2014, when the present government came to power, there was no mobile handset manufacturing unit in the State. Now out of ten cell phones made every second in the country, two are manufactured in A.P. We want to take the count to five, but the Chief Minister wants to push it up to seven or even eight,” Mr Lokesh said. The Minister said clustering approach was the best to promote electronics and many such clusters would come up in the State. A total of 76 MoUs with an investment of ?30,058 crore was signed by the State government with IT and electronics firms.

Pankaj Mohindroo, founder president, Indian Cellular Association, said that in the competitive index, Andhra Pradesh stood first and “that is why we are aggressively promoting the State. Our target is to make 500 million mobile handsets in the country, which was thought to be unrealistic at one time. But we are already making 225 million phones and the sector is rapidly growing. A.P. has the potential to make at least 100-150 million out of the 500 million and emerge as the leading player in the country. The State government and we are working towards achieving the objective.” Major players like Foxconn had arrived in the State and many more would follow. “The best is yet to come for A.P. as well as for India in the field,” Mr. Mohindroo added.