Samsung, Oppo, Vivo & Lava get Uttar Pradesh government nod to restart operations

NEW DELHI: Mobile phone makers such as Samsung, Oppo, Vivo and Lava have got the go-ahead from the Uttar Pradesh government and local authorities to restart production in their Noida and Greater Noida plants from this week, albeit at just 20-30% capacity.
Some of them are likely to face shortage of raw materials as their suppliers have still not got the nod to restart work, said industry executives.

“Permissions have been received by the majority of the companies, though the workforce has been truncated to 20-30%. It is extremely difficult to reach any kind of optimisation and efficiency in this manner,” Pankaj Mohindroo, chairman of India Cellular & Electronics Association (ICEA), told ET. “This stipulation will have to be relaxed. An uncompetitive industry can be run over by imports.”

The ICEA represents Oppo, Vivo, Apple, Lava, Xiaomi and Foxconn, among others.

Sanjeev Agarwal, chief manufacturing officer at home-grown handset maker Lava International, said the company has got an approval to restart production at 20% capacity, subject to certain conditions which will take two-three days to fulfil before it can restart production.



“We will start production with 600 employees at our Noida factory. However, the problem is that our suppliers in Noida and Greater Noida haven’t got approvals. This may lead to a shortage of raw material,” said Agarwal.

A Samsung India spokesperson said that the company received requisite permissions to restart production at our Noida factory.

"On Thursday, the factory started limited operations, which will be scaled up over a period of time." he added.

Chinese mobile phone maker Oppo said it will operate its Greater Noida plant at 30% capacity, with about 3,000 employees of its total workforce of 10,000 working in rotation from Friday.

“As the business gets back to usual in due course of time, the production will be enhanced to full capacity. Currently, all Oppo products being sold in India are manufactured at the Greater Noida facility,” Oppo said in a statement.

ET had reported on Monday that iPhone makers Foxconn and Wistron had resumed production after obtaining permission from the state authorities in southern India, marking the restart of handset production in the country that was forced to close down following the imposition of lockdown in the wake of Covid-19 outbreak, leading to a loss of Rs 20,000-25,000 crore.

Wistron’s rented facility in an industrial suburb near Bengaluru makes iPhone 7 while Foxconn’s Tamil Nadu plant assembles iPhone XR. Foxconn also makes phones for Xiaomi and Nokia-branded HMD phones.

On May 1, the ICEA had written a letter to home secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla, urging the government to allow all industrial activity within red zones except in containment zones. “The MHA (ministry of home affairs) order also states that permitted manufacturing activities are allowed outside the containment zone,” it had said.