(Yicai Global) Dec. 21 -- Chinese television maker TCL started work on its industrial enclave in India's southeastern Andhra Pradesh state yesterday. 

The park is TCL's first overseas liquid-crystal display module business and signals its strategic transformation from product output to industry chain output.

The production facility consists of TCL's electronic smart display terminal project and a module project of its unit Shenzhen Huaxing Photoelectric, with the second one to produce 8 million units of large-sized TV panels and 30 million of small mobile phone screens per year, Yicai Global learned from Huizhou, Guangdong province-based TCL.

The smart display terminal project will make 6 million TV sets a year, and not only produce TCL's products, but also provide original design manufacturing services for other TV brands in India. The two projects are expected to go into production in next year's fourth quarter.

The company now sells its display products in India through international brand customers, and setup of overseas factories will strengthen the company's global manufacturing and delivery capabilities.

Starting Position

The Indian project represents the initial positioning of Huaxing Photoelectric's overseas business, said Jin Xuzhi, senior vice president of TCL and executive officer of Huaxing. 

India is an important market for TCL, said its chairman Li Dongsheng, adding the company will not only sell products there, but also build up an industrial chain by introducing upstream and downstream supporting companies to form a localized industrial ecology. "Plants for mobile phones and home appliances will also be built next."

India's TV market, which has hit USD2.4 billion per year, still consists mostly of primitive cathode-ray tube TVs at nearly 80 percent of the total. 

Most Indian households have only one TV, thus opening up expansive market prospects for LCD flat-panel screen versions, Li Aiping, a TV industry chain analyst, told Yicai Global.

Japanese and Korean TV brands entered India earlier and now hold a dominant position, Li added, saying the LCD TV sales of the major Japanese and Korean brands Samsung, LG, Sony and Panasonic hogged more than 70 percent of overall sales in the country in the first three quarters.

Editor: Ben Armour