Kodak TV to invest Rs 500 crore to set up plant in Hapur

Kodak TV India plans to invest over Rs 500 crore (US$ 70.93 million) in the next three years to set up a fully automated television manufacturing plant in Hapur, Uttar Pradesh.

Super Plastronics Pvt Ltd (SPPL), the brand licensee in India for Kodak TV, said the first phase of the plant would be operational by the end of 2021. This move is expected to help the company increase the local value addition and disrupt the affordable smart TV market in India, it added.

It intends to use this manufacturing plant for developing and testing Android TV products within India and reduce dependency on imports from other countries, SPPL said in a statement.

The company further added, “It will make an investment of more than Rs 500 crore (US$ 70.93 million) over the next three years in a fully automated TV manufacturing plant in Hapur, UP to provide a thrust to its Make in India commitment and leverage its Android certification."

"With this investment, we are planning to increase our manufacturing capacity to one million units in the new unit. All our future projects will be developed and tested in India in partnership with Google. With this new plant we will generate more than 2000 jobs," SSPL founder and CEO Mr Avneet Singh Marwah said.

The local value addition in TV manufacturing will go up to 50-60 per cent, he added.

"Currently, the Indian TV industry imports most of the raw materials and has a value addition of only 10-12 per cent. However, with this investment and Partnership with Google.... Kodak TV aims to increase value addition to 50-60 per cent," said Mr Marwah.

He added that the new plant and R&D centre will help manufacture technology-driven products and introduce more manufacturing lines aligned to Make in India.

"The certified Android TV manufacturing plant with complete backward integration and R&D centre will be operational by 2021.

"With a capacity to produce a million TV sets annually, the new facility will be equipped with two fully automated, AI-enabled manufacturing lines to facilitate near-contactless production," the company said.

SPPL is also a brand licensee for French electronics brand Thomson.

In June 2020, the company had announced its plan to invest Rs 1,000 crore (US$ 141.86 million) over the next five years to expand its manufacturing capacity and strengthen its presence in the consumer electronics and appliances segment.

Currently, SPPL has three manufacturing plants, located in Noida, Una, and Jammu.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.