Videotex to invest ₹100 crore in new TV manufacturing plant in Greater Noida

Homegrown television manufacturer, Videotex International, has announced plans to invest ₹100 crore in setting up a new TV manufacturing plant in Greater Noida in the National Capital Region (NCR). The company said that the new plant will increase its manufacturing capacity to 3.2 million TVs. Its current plants have a capacity of 1.4 million units. 

Further, the company also said that it will be hiring new employees to meet the expanded manufacturing capacity. This includes back office staff, along with those on the manufacturing floor and more. 

At the moment, Videotex manufactures televisions for companies like Realme, Hisense, Toshiba, Lloyd, Hyundai and over 15 more brands in the country. It is also the exclusive licence holder for manufacturing TVs that run on South Korean LG’s webOS operating system. 

“Electronic contract manufacturing in India is projected to grow by over six-fold by 2025. The increased duty on imports of finished products has given a strong boost to local manufacturing and assembly in India,” said Arjun Bajaj, Director of Videotex. “This move has led to an encouraging response to domestic production. Currently many brands do not have the manufacturing set up in India, a duty leverage inclines several TV manufacturers to look for trusted and reputed local partners with strong experience and expertise to meet their requirement,” he added. 

Companies like Videotex have been looking to take advantage of a growing demand for televisions in India since the pandemic. According to a March 2022 report by market research firm Counterpoint Research, India’s TV shipments grew 48% year-on-year (YoY) in the quarter ended December 2021, registering a 24% YoY growth for the 2021 calendar year. It noted that the smart TV market in the country reached its highest even shipments in 2021, owing to pent-up demand due to the pandemic. 

Videotex isn’t the only TV maker ramping up investments in manufacturing either. Competitor Super Plastronics Pvt. Ltd. (SPPL) had announced a ₹300 crore investment in India last year, which the company said would be phased over the next three years. 

Like Videotex, SPPL also aims to double its capacities with the investment. The company also said that it would strengthen capabilities in Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, to meet new customer demands. 

Another contract manufacturer, Radiant Appliances and Electronics had also opened a new manufacturing plant for LED televisions in Hyderabad last week, expanding its production capacity to 4.5 million units per year, from 2.1 million. 

SPPL, Radiant and Videotex are amongst the largest TV manufacturing firms in India, alongside Dixon Technologies, which has a larger manufacturing portfolio that includes smartphones, laptops and more. The company is also a beneficiary of the government’s production linked incentive (PLI) scheme for mobile phones, announced in March 2020. 

PLI schemes worth ₹51,355 crore were announced in March 2020. They applied to three sectors including, mobile phone manufacturing and specified electronics components, like drug intermediates and active pharmaceutical ingredients; and medical devices.