Electronics manufacturer Intex is planning a Rs 1,000 crore smartphone manufacturing facility in Greater Noida, reports NextBigWhat. According to the company, the facility will be spread over 20 lakh square feet area and will be developed in the next three years. The report mentions that the facility will be able to manufacture around 35 million phones (most likely yearly), as well as produce LED TVs, washing machines and other computer peripherals. Interestingly, a Hindu Business Line report from August mentions that Intex was looking to invest Rs 500 crore in a manufacturing facility in the country and was in talks with the state governments of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, to set it up. Intex licensing of Sailfish: In July, Intex licensed the Sailfish OS from the Finnish corp Jolla to release Sailfish based smartphones by the end of this year. The company mentioned then that the first smartphone to launch under this initiative would be called Aqua Fish and would be available by September. However, the phone, which was to be priced at less than Rs 10,000, is yet to hit the market. Electronics manufacturing in India: The Indian government has been encouraging domestic companies to start manufacturing electronics goods within the country instead of importing them and had approved a National Policy on Electronics. The National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council (NMCC) had also proposed the creation of a $1 billion fund to encourage telecom equipment manufacturing in India. The Cabinet had approved the setting up of two semiconductor wafer fabrication…
