Sony to escalate smartphones, TV manufacturing to drive Make in India programme

Sony India, the Indian subsidiary of Japan's Sony Corporation plans up to enhance 'Make in India' programme with local sourcing, in line with the government’s move to increase taxes on imports.

The company has plans to escalate the manufacturing of smartphones, televisions and audio gadgets since the Indian government has increased import duties to give a boost to the 'Make in India' initiative. Sony already has its own manufacturing facilities in Japan, China and Malaysia. 

According to a report, the newly-appointed MD of Sony India, Sunil Nayyar told, "We are in touch with Tokyo on how to further strengthen ‘Make in India’. As of now, we are happy with our third-party manufacturing and quality of products which has negligible return rates. A large portion of our portfolio will move towards local production which will be a win-win situation for the brand, consumers and government."

“We would rather focus on a premium segment which will boost profitability. Hence, in television, the focus will be on 55-inch and above models, while we will not enter the sub-Rs 10,000 smartphone segment,” Sunil Nayyar told.

The move will help control costs by avoiding the import duties while pushing research that makes the products more suitable to local conditions, he told.

In a bid to protect domestic manufacturing, the government of India increased the import tax on dozens of electronic products such as mobile phones and television sets. Customs duty on television sets has been doubled to 20 percent (earlier 10 percent ) and 15 percent in smartphones (earlier 10 percent) to expand the domestic industrial base.