Samsung to ramp up prod capacity

New Delhi, Oct 5: Samsung Telecommunications India (STI) will ramp production capacity of its Haryana plant to 3 million handsets from 1.2 million units by the end of this fiscal and has already invested 15 million dollars for the purpose, company MD said today.

The company plans to line up many high-end, mid-level and entry level coloured phones in the next few months and aims to produce at least 20 million units at its facility at Manesar by 2010, STI Managing Director Hyun Chul Ryu told newspersons while launching the company's ultra-compact SGH-P310 multi-featured phone here.

Mr Ryu, however, declined to give investment details for its 2010 production target saying that concrete details had yet to be worked out.

''Looking at the Asian requirements, STI now wants to focus more on the mid-level and high-end colour phone segment. We plan to manufacture a whole array of Samsung GSM handsets at Manesar. The CDMA is not a high-end market as of now,'' he said.

Targeted at the fashion savvy business professionals in their 30s, the Rs 21,499-Samsung P310 is the follow-up to the Samsung P300 'Card Phone' handset launched by the company in July this year.

The SGH-P310 is almost exactly the same size and weight as the P300, coming in at 86x54x8.5mm and weighing only 76.5 grams. The sleek credit card size phone packs in a 2 megapixel digital camera with flash, 1.9" 320x240 pixel widescreen display and microSD expandable memory, plus an MP3 player, Bluetooth and even a TV output port.

Add the external leather case (which has an additional battery), and the weight goes up to 140 grams only. The company claims the new P310 comes with an improved battery life, which was a source of complaintin the older handset.

UNI