Spice plans manufacturing unit in HP

Aiming to corner a 10 per cent market share by 2009, Noida-based low cost mobile set manufacturer Spice Ltd on Thursday said it was in the process of setting up its own mobile manufacturing facility at Baddi in Himachal Pradesh.

"We will set up a mobile manufacturing unit at Himachal Pradesh's Baddi. The new unit will be an extension to our personal computer manufacturing unit there. We hope that unit will be made fully functional by 2007," Kunal Ahooja, CEO, Spice said.

He said, "We have not worked out on the volume of investment to be made for the venture. But we will go for initial public offer to part finance the investment plan".

At present, Spice Ltd outsourced chips technology for its mobile sets from the Taiwanese firm Mediatek based in Noida, Ahooja said.

After covering north and east India, the Spice would extend its operation to western and other parts the country, he said, adding that company's focus would be smaller and mid-sized towns.

The company launched four handset models such as s500, s404, s555 and s600 with a price range from Rs 2,499 to Rs 5,799.

Spice Ltd is a part of M corp global, a trans-national management group with a turnover of nearly $250 million, Ahooja said.