Veira taps China’s Skyworth for Android TV designs, R&D

Noida-based original design manufacturing (ODM) firm Veira Group, which specialises in manufacturing smart televisions under a range of retail brands, has announced a partnership with China’s Skyworth Group to upgrade its smart television manufacturing initiative. A press statement issued on the matter stated that with this partnership, Skyworth Group will offer “technology upgrades and cost optimisation” for Android TVs — Google’s smart television operating system.

The partnership comes about a month after the company unveiled its second manufacturing facility in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh. Announced on September 26, the Veira Group said that it plans to invest ₹200 crore in its new facility, which will help the company increase its total manufacturing capacity to 4 million smart TV sets per year.

Prior to this, Veira had its primary factory in Noida Sector 63, from which it was producing 1 million smart TVs for various retail brands in India. According to the company, it has over 25 retail brands as its clients, which include the likes of Haier and Infinix, and manufactures TVs ranging from 23-inch to 75-inch in screen size, and ₹5,000 to ₹1,50,000 in price range.

The partnership will seemingly offer Veira access to Skyworth’s Android TV technology designs, and also involve resources for Veira Group to conduct research and development (R&D) to build better products. The company’s new facility in Greater Noida will also include an R&D division that will seek to build products of new form factors.

The move comes as ODMs in India’s smart TV market have sought global partnerships and licenses to step up their TV offerings. Manufacturers such as Dixon, Videotex and Super Plastronics (SPPL) are among those that have procured licences from Android TV maker Google. These licences help companies to graduate into becoming an ODM, rather than being only an original equipment manufacturer (OEM).

While OEMs are only involved with assembling and retailing a product, ODMs have the freedom to design their own products based on reference designs and software platforms. Being among the latter gives contract manufacturers such as Veira, Dixon, Videotex or SPPL the ability to attract multiple brands — and manufacture products for a larger number of clients.