Samsung to Start Making Laptops in India: Galaxy S24 Success Fuels Expansion

New Delhi, Jan 29 (PTI) Korean electronics major Samsung, which has started shipping made-in-India premium smartphone Galaxy S24, decided to manufacture laptops at its Noida factory in the country this year, a senior company official said on Monday.

Terming India as its important manufacturing base, Samsung Electronics President and Head of Mobile eXperience (MX) Business T M Roh told reporters here that the preparation for the laptop manufacturing is in progress in India.

"We will start manufacturing laptops this year at the Noida factory. Preparations are already underway," said the official who is on an India visit.

Roh said India is an important manufacturing base for the company, and it has received support at various levels from the state and central governments.

The company will continue to cooperate with the government to strengthen manufacturing in India, he added.

The company has recently launched its flagship Galaxy S24 series smartphone with a key focus on artificial intelligence capability in the device.

More than 2.5 lakh customers in India have ordered a Galaxy S24 smartphone since pre-bookings opened in the country on January 18.

Samsung has started shipping made-in-India Galaxy S24 to the customers who pre-booked the device. The company will also export the Galaxy S24 device from India.

In response to a question on reduction of Samsung share in export of mobile phones from India, Roh said that as per market experts the global smartphone market has declined by about 5 per cent and the production across Samsung plants have been optimised in line with global demand.

"Noida is a very important production base for Samsung. It is the second-largest base for Samsung. There may be some changes at the plant to optimise it as per the global demand, but what remains unchanged is the fact that it is an important base for us," Roh said.

He further said that the Noida plant started with manufacturing of feature phones, smartphones, wearable, and tablets, and now the company will start manufacturing laptops this year.

When asked about the impact of AI server shortage in India on the experience of Galaxy S24 AI features, Roh said that the smartphone supports both cloud-based AI and on-device AI.

"Some of the cloud-based AI capabilities that are provided on the device are also customised for the mobile environment, meaning that they have been made lighter and made more specialised for the AI mobile environment. This means that whether in the US, or China as you mentioned, or in India, and in fact anywhere in the world, you will be able to enjoy the cloud-based AI capabilities without much difference," Roh said.

The Ministry of Electronics and IT is working on a proposal for developing the AI ecosystem in the country with an outlay of over Rs 10,000 crore. Under the proposal, the ministry plans to set up the AI compute infrastructure in a public-private-partnership mode to boost the AI ecosystem.

Roh said that the company is also extending AI capabilities to 100 million Galaxy devices this year similar to the features it has launched in Galaxy S24 series.

"The AI Phone is important today and will be even more important down the road because it is the device that people use wherever or whenever it is the easiest to use and to do whatever you and whenever you want. In other words, I believe that the mobile device will be the core of the AI and the AI capabilities," Roh said.