Visteon Corporation is setting up a display manufacturing unit in India, Sachin Lawande, CEO, Visteon Corporation, has said. Addressing the media in Chennai, he said that the company will be investing close to $20 million in setting up this facility.
Scheduled to be commissioned in the latter half of 2023, Visteon's upcoming display manufacturing facility will primarily focus on catering to the needs of the Indian market. The company, simultaneously, is also working on establishing a better local supply chain for procuring components and raw materials from within the country.
'We currently import 85% of the components used in our products and solutions. Our aim is to increase the amount of localised components by 50% in the coming few years,' noted Lawande. He further informed that the upcoming Chennai facility will be capable of manufacturing one million display units in a year.
The company is also exploring the possibility of establishing one more additional manufacturing facility in India. The same, as Lawande explained, will be done once the Chennai facility (yet-to-be-set-up) reaches its capacity. The facility in Chennai reaching its production capacity of a million displays would mean $350 to $400 million business for the company from India. Accomplishing this target may drive Visteon to look for an additional manufacturing facility in the country.
Visteon is also setting up three new centres in the country Goa, Coimbatore and Trivandrum. Lawande explained that the idea behind setting up three new centres revolves around doubling the headcount on the company's payroll in the country. 'Visteon's half of the R&D work is done from India. We also do about one-third of electrical and mechanical development from here,' noted Lawande.
Signing two MoUs with institutions based in Goa, the company will focus on hiring fresh graduates walking out of these institutions. Lawande pointed out that the company will be signing more such industry-academia partnerships in the future. He wants to create a win-win for the institutions, its students and Visteon.
'We expect the Indian car market to become the third biggest in the world in a couple of years. The INR1 million to INR3 million segment is the one where we see the most of the growth happening,' noted Lawande.