LG India starts open cell manufacturing of TV at Pune plant.

KOLKATA: The country’s second largest television maker, LG India has started open cell manufacturing of televisions in India at its Pune facility with two models and plans to scale it up while deciding to pass on the benefits derived from lower taxation from such manufacturing to consumers, a senior company official said. 

Talking to ET, LG Electronics India director (home entertainment) Younchul Park said the open cell manufacturing of televisions has started from May with 32 and 43-inch sizes. He, however, did not share the investment details. 

“How fast we can scale it up depends on market adoption. However, we want to start open cell across sizes and eventually all the models will be manufactured through this process,” he said. 

In open cell manufacturing, companies import television panels in open-cell state which would require further assembling before being ready to be used into television assembling. Apart from LG, Samsung too has invested in that manufacturing process to save on import duties 

The duty on open cell panels is 5% as compared to 15% duty on ready-to-use television panels. Panel accounts for 75-80% of a television’s production cost. There are no plant in India which does television panel fabrication. LG intends to pass on these taxation benefits to consumers. 

Park said LG already manufactures its entire television range in India, except one super premium 77-inch model which is imported from Korea. “We are planning to start manufacturing of this model too. The Pune factory is one of the best factory for televisions amongst all LG facilities,” he said. 

LG is the country’s second largest television maker with around 25% share as compared to Samsung’s over 30% share, industry executives said. However, Park said in the premium $2500-plus price segment, LG is the second largest brand in India. 

“We are giving value to customer hence we expect to soon reach the number one position. We are improving our market share and have gained a lot of share in the $2500-plus price segment in last five months to touch 35% share,” he said.