Salcomp acquires another defunct factory inside Nokia SEZ in Chennai

Finnish electronics manufacturer Salcomp, one of the largest suppliers of chargers for Apple iPhones, on Thursday announced acquisition of a defunct factory owned by Jabil Circuit, a US-based electronics manufacturing services, inside the Nokia Telecom SEZ in Sriperumbudur.

Sources said the deal was inked for Rs 42.50 crores. Jabil Circuit had shut its operations at the factory in Sriperumbudur, 50 kms from Chennai, a few years back.
This is Salcomp's fourth acquisition within the Nokia Telecom Park that began to function in early 2000s and the Nokia factory was one of the symbols of India's economic success story.

The latest development comes a year after Salcomp acquired the defunct Nokia factory, which was lying idle since 2014. The factory was left out of the deal between Microsoft and Nokia.

The factory Nokia had in October this year got a new lease of life after Salcomp revived it and launched production of electronic equipment. Over the years, the Finnish major acquired Laird, and LOM factories too inside the SEZ.

“Salcomp will manufacture electronics and electro mechanical parts that goes into phones and other electronic gadgets from the new facility, which is expected to be ready for production in mid-2021,” Sasikumar Gendham, Managing Director, Salcomp India, told DH.

Salcomp, which has been operating out of the Nokia Telecom SEZ in Sriperumbudur since 2007, has invested Rs 1,800 crore in expanding its production capacity, including at the erstwhile Nokia facility, since 2019.

With the purchase of the Jabil plant, Salcomp will be occupying over 80 percent of the space in the Nokia Park which is spread over ten lakh square feet. Salcomp first launched operations at the SEZ in 2007 when it began supplying components to Nokia and other mobile manufacturers.

Besides one plant in Noida, Salcomp now has five plants in Sriperumbudur, including the Jabil factory that has been acquired.

Nokia was the first mobile phone manufacturer to step onto the Indian soil to set up its unit way back in 2006. The plant was once India’s pride as it was one of the largest manufacturing units in the world producing one crore mobile phones a year and had employed 30,000 people directly or indirectly.

The sprawling Nokia plant was left out of the Microsoft-Nokia deal when the former acquired the latter due to a tax dispute between the Finnish mobile maker and the Indian Government. The plant closed down in November 2014 and efforts to sell the factory began after the Rs 21,000-crore tax dispute was resolved in 2018.