Harman puts ‘Make in India’ into action, opens new Chakan plant

Premium audio and infotainment solutions company, Harman today officially inaugurated its first manufacturing facility in India, based in Chakan, near Pune. The plant, which has set up one assembly line in its initial phase, can produce up to 100,000 units per annum. The products rolled out from this assembly line will cater to Tata Motors, Fiat Auto India and Volkswagen India.

According to company officials, the plant, with a built-up area spread across 35,000 square feet  can house four assembly lines and can produce up to 400,000 units per annum while operating at its full capacity. The officials did not disclose the total investments made by the firm in setting up the said plant.

Lakshmi Narayan, managing director and country manager, Harman International (India), told Autocar Professional that the company expects to reach full capacity utilisation of its first assembly line by Q3 2015.

The company, which has designed and the developed tailor-made infotainment system for Tata Motors’ recently launched Zest sedan, is expecting to bank on its international relations with global car manufacturers who are operating in India to boost its local business.

Stressing on prime minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make-in-India’ vision, Dinesh C Paliwal, chairman, president and CEO, Harman International, said: “We started our operations in China seven years ago from ground zero. Today we have two world-class manufacturing plants there and we make infotainment systems for top German brands. We hope that with the new, progressive government at the centre, India will follow the footsteps of China in terms of development and growth. We are not looking at cost arbitrage through our manufacturing plant in Chakan. Pune isn’t the cheapest place in the world to set up a business. However, we are looking at doing business with our customers located in this belt and we want to work closely with them in order to develop world-class products at Indian prices,”

The company aims to rev up its India turnover up to US$ 500 million (Rs 3,070 crore) in the next five years as against US$ 100 million (Rs 614 crore) currently. That includes businesses across all its product lines, which range from car audio and infotainment systems to consumer and professional markets. According to Paliwal, car audio systems comprise nearly 25 percent of overall revenues for the company. “Germany is a big market for us as roughly it accounts for over one-third of our global revenues. We are working with all top carmakers in Germany such as Volkswagen, Daimler, BMW, Porsche and others,” added the company official.

The company website states that Harman International is the world’s largest car audio and infotainment systems manufacturer, with the largest global audio research and development team, the products of this company equip more than 20 million cars, which include four out of five luxury vehicles globally. Its umbrella covers over 15 leading brands including AKG, Harman Kardon, Infinity, JBL, Lexicon and Mark Levinson.

Harman’s audio and infotainment systems can be found in Land Rover, Hyundai, Ferrari, Chrysler, Dodge, Peugeot, Jeep, Kia, Lexus, Mini, Citroen, SsangYong and many other vehicles. According to the company’s 2013 annual report, it had launched major global infotainment platforms for BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Ferrari, Audi, Harley-Davidson and Toyota last year.

“We are working on the next steps in technology to connect cars to cloud for car-to-car connectivity. This is also opens up work in the area of car safety and security as professional hackers can hack into any car under normal circumstances, which is a big threat. We are developing next-generation system architectures, which can guard a car from being hacked while taking care of all the infotainment requirements. Germany is leading the technological initiatives in this direction and Harman is working with them in developing appropriate solutions,” he elaborated.

Apart from the said production facility, Harman International India, a wholly owned subsidiary of Harman International Industries, currently has two R&D centres, one each based in Bangalore and Pune. “We are going to expand our footprint in India, which may be another R&D centre here near our customers,” said Paliwal.

On November 6, Autocar Professional had broken the news about Harman planning to commence its production operations at Chakan by mid-November.

Link: http://www.autocarpro.in/news-national/harman-start-operations-chakan-plant-6730