Optiemus Infracom is one of the 16 companies that were approved under the PLI scheme related to mobile phones production in India. The company noted that selling the asset was in best interest of the company
Optiemus Infracom has announced the sale of an asset worth Rs 285 crore. The proceeds of the same, as per the company, will be used in expansion of its mobile manufacturing business in India. The asset that the company sold, is located in Noida, Uttar Pradesh.
The company, which owns brands including Optisafe, Zen, Kult, Molife and Blackberry, is one of the 16 that have been given the go ahead to participate under the PLI scheme related to mobile phones production in India. It is also to be noted here that Optimemus had posted profit figures of Rs 4.50 crore for the quarter ended December 2020. The company had incurred a loss of Rs 7.69 crore during the same quarter in 2019.
Joint venture between Optiemus Infracom & Wistron Corporation
The Board of Optiemus Infracom had approved the purchase of 27,60,000 equity shares (19.91 per cent of the total share capital) of Optiemus Electronics last year. This purchase was done from Wistron Corporation. Once a joint venture between Wistron and Optiemus Infracom, the company is now said to completely managed and run by Optiemus Infracom.
Smartphone brands including the likes of Oppo, OnePlus, Blackberry, Micromax, LG and HTC are some of the clients of Optiemus Electronics. Interstingly, while Optiemus Electronics got the centre’s approval for PLI scheme under the tag of an Indian company, Wistron has got the same under the tag of an international company.
Wistron, following a major fight at one of its facility in India, had admitted that some workers at its Kolar district plant in Karnataka were not paid properly. The company had also noted about sacking a top executive. Tech-giant Apple had even put contract electronics manufacturer Wistron on probation for a certain period of time.
“The net proceeds of the above mentioned transaction will mainly be utilised towards expansion of mobile manufacturing business through Optiemus Electronics Limited, subsidiary company and to repay the existing loans and reduce interest burden,” noted the company in a filing recently.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi had recently noted that different PLI Schemes would lead to production worth $520 billion over the next few years. Pointing toward the mobile phone PLI scheme, the Prime Minister had said, “Even during Pandemic, the sector manufactured goods worth Rs 35000 crore last year, saw a fresh investment of about Rs 1300 crore and created thousands of new jobs in this sector.”
India, as per a report by ICEA, exported electronics goods worth Rs 8,806 crore during December 2020. Mobile phones were the highest contributor in the segment comprising of 35 per cent of the value with an export value of IRs 3,061 Crore which is 50 per cent higher than December 2019.
Out of Rs 1.15 trillion worth of electronics components that India imported in 2019-20, 37 per cent were imported from China. Sanjay Dhotre, minister of State for Communications and Electronics and IT, had revealed these numbers in a written reply in Rajya Sabha.
The minister, citing data obtained from the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCI&S), had noted that India exported smartphone components worth Rs 56,039 crore during 2019-20. Out of the total amount, smartphone components worth Rs 25,441 crore were exported from China.
