Manufacturing services firm Zetwerk is foraying into the IT hardware business with production of laptops and also gearing up to make components for electric vehicle (EV) makers, the company’s cofounder, Rahul Sharma, told ET.
Zetwerk, which became a unicorn in 2021, is looking to invest more than INR 1,000 crore into its consumer electronics business over the next three years, and will expand its footprint beyond north India with three new facilities in the southern part of the country, Sharma said.
“We are entering IT and hardware,” he told ET. “That might be through parties who already have PLIs. We will ginto some kind of tie ups with them so that we can enter the space and be competitive with the biggest players in the market.”
Zetwerk already manufactures wearables and hearables. It recently started with televisions and is now moving on to laptops in the IT hardware space. The company acts as a contract manufacturer for other brands and doesn’t have plans to sell through its own name.
“We are also launching our foray into electric vehicles,” said Sharma. “We will not be making EVs but will be focused on the component side, majorly in the electronics space. This would mean working on the battery management system (BMS), the motor controller, the vehicle control unit (VCU) as well as battery packs.”
Sharma said Zetwerk is in talks with customers to start manufacturing components for them, as well as looking to set up a plant that will be located in the west of the country.
Sharma said he expects the consumer electronics division to grow seven times in revenue terms this year from the previous year.
He said he expects Zetwerk to be among the top five electronics manufacturing services (EMS) players in the country in terms of revenue, and hopes to grow this revenue by 2-3 times in the next financial year.
According to Sharma, Zetwerk’s existing facilities can manufacture around 20 million wearable and hearable devices a year. The company recently opened a new plant in Noida, pushing the total tally of plants in the area to three for wearables and hearables.
The company also has the capacity to manufacture almost 2 million televisions in Gurgaon.
“Then we are also setting up the facility for electric vehicle and battery pack manufacturing, which would be able to manufacture upwards of 20,000 battery packs per month, on the western side of the country,” he said. “And then on the IT hardware side, we are setting up the capex to produce more than 100,000 laptops per month. That facility should be up and running within this year.”
Sharma said the company is going to open factories across three locations in southern India. These will mainly meet the requirements of IT hardware and consumer electronics customers and should be operational before October this year.
