L&T to buy 200 acres of land in Tamil Nadu, preparing to follow Tata’s lead!
Larsen & Toubro (L&T), a renowned engineering company, is preparing to enter the electronics manufacturing services (EMS) sector. An ET report cites sources as claiming this. According to sources, the company has held preliminary talks with the Tamil Nadu government for approximately 200 acres of land near Chennai. Electronics manufacturing in the country has recently seen a significant boom, and its exports have also increased significantly.
The $17 billion L&T Group has several companies involved in electronics. However, it wants to emulate Tata, which can manufacture everything from start to finish. It has received a contract from the Tata Group. Tata Electronics is already doing contract manufacturing for Apple. However, it is not yet clear whether L&T will follow this path or forge its own path. The company has experience in large engineering projects. They also have a presence in defense and aerospace. Therefore, it is expected that the company will focus on manufacturing components for these sectors.
Chip Manufacturing Plans
A source said that L&T may also manufacture semiconductors (chips) in Tamil Nadu. L&T and the Tamil Nadu government did not respond to questions about this. The company has partnered with Foxconn for semiconductor manufacturing. An analyst said that L&T is not interested in entering the smartphone sector like Tata. The company already has subsidiaries like Precision Engineering & Systems that do some work in electronics. Therefore, expanding into the electronics manufacturing services sector would be a natural step.
Last August, L&T Chairman S.N. Subrahmanyan told ET that the group’s two-year-old chip design business has 400 engineers. Most of these are in Bengaluru, while the rest work in Austin, Munich, and Tokyo. This business focuses on analog chips. He had said, “Our goal is to design the chip, develop a proof of concept, and demonstrate it to customers. If this is successful, we will contract manufacture the chips. We could become the first Indian company to design and commercialize a chip completely in-house. We already have seven customers.”
