HARMAN, a wholly owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., today announced an expansion to its automotive electronics manufacturing plant at Chakan, near Pune, Maharashtra, in sync with the national priority program of ‘Make in India’.

The second phase of the plant inaugurated on 3^rd June 2019. Established in 2014, currently HARMAN’s Chakan (Pune) plant manufactures highly sophisticated connected car solutions including automotive infotainment units for India’s domestic and global automotive customers.

After a very successful launch of phase one, the phase II expansion will triple its production capacity by the year 2021. HARMAN will install four new world- class SMT production/assembly lines, scaling from existing two to six lines, to meet the growing demands for innovative connected car solutions globally.

In the next three years, the production of Digital Cockpit Units (DCU) and Telematics Control Units (TCU) from the Chakan plant will increase from current 2,00,000 units to over 25,00,000 units annually - a steep 12-fold rise. HARMAN will also double its factory headcount to about 800 employees in the same time period. The total value of this investment is Rs. 3,500 million.

With this expansion, HARMAN will be able to manufacture highly complex, customized connected car electronics solutions for its large domestic and global customers including Maruti Suzuki, Daimler (Mercedes Benz), Volkswagen Group, TATA Motors and Fiat Chrysler.

Chakan Plant is part of HARMAN’s global automotive manufacturing network, which is spread across China, Hungary, Mexico, Brazil and Germany.