​Hyderabad: DataWind Innovations, the Indian arm of Toronto Stock Exchange-listed low-cost mobile devices maker, DataWind Inc, formally inaugurated its manufacturing facility in Hyderabad on Friday.

Set up on over 40,000 sft at the GMR Complex of Rajiv Gandhi International Airport with an incremental investment of Rs 100 crore, the new facility will manufacture two million units of tablets and smartphones in the first year, and reach full capacity of five million units thereon.

We expect to continue expanding our dominant position in the tablet market by increasing the range of products which will be manufactured at our newly inaugurated facility in Hyderabad and our first facility in Amritsar,” Suneet Singh Tuli, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of DataWind, told reporters here.

DataWind, which leads the tablets segment with a 37 per cent market share, would be employing 600 people for the Hyderabad facility and further ramp it up to 1,000 by the end of March 2017.

We are focusing on low-cost devices in the range of Rs 1,500 to Rs 5,000 and help bring down the cost of phones in the market. There is a five per cent year-on-year growth in the sub-Rs 5,000 phone market,” Tuli said. Stating that DataWind was looking at establishing a production unit in the eastern part of the country in a year from now, he said that the company, however, has not yet zeroed in on any location.

We have applied for a licence to start telecom operations as a VNO (virtual network operator), which should be granted in a year or so. We intend to invest Rs 80 crore in the VNO business.” As part of the VNO service, we will come out with our own SIMs and offer Rs 20 unlimited browsing plan by next year,” he said.