Recently, India has been the head turner of tech companies for future investments with Google, and Qualcomm being the latest ones to invest in India’s Jio. Now, Kodak TV India is ready with an investment of over ₹500 crores ($66.5 million) in India to set up a fully automated manufacturing plant and develop more Android TVs within India.
If you didn’t know, the Eastman Kodak Company has origins in America with roots in the pharmaceutical business. However, the company also produces camera-related products, TVs and with the new investment through SPPL, it plans to develop and test Android TV products within India thereby reducing dependency on other countries.
The aim of this investment is to build a fully automated manufacturing plant at Hapur, Uttar Pradesh over the next three years. With this, the company believes to be one of the first to invest in TV manufacturing within India honouring the “Make in India campaign” while leveraging Android TV certification at an affordable price.
Kodak says the Smart Android TV manufacturing plant will be operational by 2021. It will have an R&D centre, backward integration, have two fully-automated AI-enabled manufacturing lines with contactless operations by following all international safety guidelines for COVID-19.
The Kodak TVs are not new as it launched the 7XPRO recently and CA series of TVs back in March. The company says it has received a huge response amidst a pandemic with a recovery of 65% of sales post-lockdown.
This has apparently encouraged it to start a new plant through which it aims to export TVs. Partnering with Noida-based SPPL, the company aims to produce 1 million Android TVs. Avneet Singh Marwah, Founder and CEO, SPPL said, with the new investment, KODAK HD LED TV aims to reduce imports and increase the value addition by 50-60%.”