Corning, which is the biggest name across the world for making the popular Gorilla Glass protection for handsets. The company has said that India is going to be the next destination for ICT manufacturing. As per the Corning Senior VP and General Manager of Mobile Consumer Electronics, John Bayne, India is going to see the movement of supply chains slowly away from China and onto its soil. Speaking about the company’s plans he said that Corning likes to be close to its consumers and so the movement of supply chains would mean that Corning would also be making investments in the country with time. He also said that the coming of 5G would mean that there would be massive replacements in handsets meaning that a lot of new consumers would be buying handsets.
India to Become a Strategic Investment Location
In a conversation with ET Telecom, Bayne also said that the local companies in India are also resilient and have hung on for too long. As such, the exec said that Corning would be willing to invest with the local companies and make partnerships with them and not only with global brands. Speaking about India’s position as an investment destination he said that the market here is of strategic interest for global investors and as such despite the small setbacks such as the pandemic, in the long term, investors will flock to invest in India. However, he also said that Corning would not rush to invest in India in order to avoid excessive cost raises which would eventually impact the consumers.
5G to Drive Smartphone Replacement Cycles In India
Speaking about the smartphone replacement cycles, the Corning exec said that India would see high replacement numbers because currently a lot of people have feature phones and they would want to shift technologies with the coming of 5G. As such, Corning is hoping to drive these heavy replacement cycles. Adding to his statements he also said that the smartphones are becoming more resilient, but they are also going through a lot of rough use in their long life cycle, as such the Gorilla Glass protection would see an improvement by brand uptake with DX and DX+ type camera covers also seeing traction in the coming months.
