Toshiba to set up manufacturing unit in India by end-2011

Toshiba Corporation yesterday said it planned to establish a manufacturing facility in India by the year-end to cut costs in the highly competitive Indian market.

Meanwhile, the Japanese company's Gurgaon-based research and development centre is expected to become operational, and will focused on developing products specifically for the Indian market.

The Japanese consumer electronics major also introduced new innovative products, including the world's first glasses-free 3D laptop and 3D TV in addition to a 19-inch LED TV.

''We will start local manufacturing of our products starting with television by the end of this year. Our aim is to make our products more affordable to help us tap the growing Indian market. We will gradually extend local manufacturing to home appliances depending on the demand of the products…we will also focus on localising products.'' Toshiba Corporation vice-president (digital products and services) Masayuki Ito told journalists in New Delhi.

The company now imports all its products, mostly from Indonesia and Japan.

''India is an important market for us and we want to offer our customers here leading-edge products offering more functions. We are focused on extending our reach and finding growth with products specially designed for India. We hope to increase the number of televisions sold in India by 10-fold to 3-lakh units by the end of this year. We are targeting a 10 per cent LCD TV share in current fiscal and 15 per cent share in 2012-13,'' he added.