This Wednesday, ASUS’ regional lead for South Asia and India Peter Chang announced that the Taiwanese consumer electronics manufacturer is planning on scaling up its operations in India. More specifically, ASUS intends to double its local production capacity and be capable of manufacturing 600,000 phones on an annual basis by the end of 2016. Well, manufacturing device parts would be a more accurate way to put it, as the Taiwanese company Foxconn will still be handling the assembly of any new ASUS smartphones.
ASUS is also keen on increasing its market share in India by launching budget phones cheaper than RS 6,000, i.e. around $90. The new devices will gradually roll out throughout the remainder of the year while the company’s midrange devices will still retail for around RS 20,000 ($300). Chang specifically stated that Asus believes it should aim to turn India into its “home base”, especially in regards to smartphones. Apart from scaling up its production capabilities, the company is also doubling its Indian marketing budget for the current year in order to attain a 5% market share in the country. ASUS Corporate will also allegedly provide some extra funding in addition to what the Indian branch secures in order to make sure the aforementioned goals are met by the end of 2016. None of this is too surprising as Asus has been talking about huge opportunities in the Indian smartphone market for quite a while now.
Chang also added that it’s difficult for ASUS to compete in India in the same way Vivo and Oppo are because the said companies have huge home bases and can, therefore, “take from home and invest in India.” ASUS’ regional head is still quite optimistic about their future prospects as the Taiwanese manufacturer is soon launching a successor to ZenFone 2 which sold quite well in India. The device is slated for an official reveal at next month’s Computex and should ensure a solid foothold for ASUS in the Indian mid-range smartphone market. In addition to that, the recently launched ZenFone Zoom is also allegedly doing quite well in India despite the fact that Indians are, generally speaking, not exactly prone to purchasing flagship devices.