Strategic Calling
Lee Jae-yong, vice chairman of Samsung Electronics who emerged to the fore by assuming the title of a registered executive director paid a courtesy call on Narendra Modi, prime minister of India on September 15 (local time). According to the Indian Prime Minister’s Office, an Indian corporation of Samsung and the Samsung Group in Korea, vice chairman Lee met with Prime Minister Modi in New Delhi, the capital of India in the afternoon of the day. For 50 minutes, vice chairman Lee introduced the status of Samsung’s business and social contribution activities in India and exchanged opinions about business cooperation with the Indian prime minister.
Analysis says that vice chairman Lee blitzed to visit India during the Chuseok holidays in an effort to express his strong will that Samsung will make any change in its global investment despite massive recalls of the Galaxy Note 7. “Samsung is actively responding to Modi’s ‘Make in India, Digital India and Skill India’ policies via smartphone and electric home appliance factories and an R&D center in India,” said vice chairman Lee in the meeting. “We will continue to maintain steady partnership with the Indian government and grow India into a strategic growth base.”
“I know that Samsung Electronics is playing many roles in the Indian manufacturing business,” the Indian prime minister said. “As we hold high expectations for Samsung, we want more investment from Samsung.”
With reference to vice chairman Lee’s visit to India amid Samsung Electronics’ trouble with problematic batteries of the Galaxy Note 7, some industry experts say that Samsung Electronics may ramp up the proportion of production in India such as the extensive expansion of facilities.
Samsung Electronics is running a smartphone factory and an electric home appliance factory in Noida and Chennai in southern India, respectively. It is known that Samsung employees over 45,000 Indian workers including those of its Bengaluru Research Center.
Under these circumstances, a discussion began about building a third factory in India which will produce cell phones and electric home appliances several years ago but little progress has been made since then. It is said that vice chairman Lee did not mention a plan to build a third factory in the meeting with Prime Minister Modi.
According to the daily Business Standard of India, Samsung Electronics India posted 7,387.3 billion won in sales in 2014, placing second among multinational companies in India. GfK, a market survey firm, said that Samsung Electronics picked up first place in the Indian smartphone market with a 38.2% market share in terms of units sold in the second quarter of this year.