Mumbai: LG Electronics India (P) Ltd, plans to emerge a $10-billion company by 2010 by consolidating the company's market share in consumer electronics, home appliances, information technology and mobile phone markets. It is alsp planning of making India its global export hub and target countries in SAARC, South Africa and UAE.

LGEIL is also planning to infuse $250 million in the country, which would be utilised for increasing production capacity of its electronic goods, hiking R&D spend and recruiting additional staff..

According to LG Electronics Inc's president for South West Asia, and managing director, LGEIL, Kwang-Ro Kim, "With a strong focus on research and development (R&D), we intend to become a $10-billion company by 2010. About 30 per cent of this would be from exports."

"We are investing close to two-three per cent of our total turnover for R&D and are expecting to make the country an R&D hub for consumer electronics, home appliances and GSM phones," Kim said. He disclosed that LG was planning to manufacture 20 million handsets in the next five years from its new plant at Ranjangaon, close to Pune - the first GSM mobile handset manufacturing facility in the country.

The company has invested Rs150 crore ($32 million) at Ranjangaon, a greenfield facility, which would manufacture colour televisions, refrigerators, washing machines, microwave ovens and colour monitors, Kim said. LGEIL plans to become a major electronic goods manufacturer and shake-off its fifth position among the global handset makers.

The plant would also manufacture Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) handsets in the next one year, while manufacturing emerging technologies like 'evolution value data optimised' (EvDO) and 'high-speed downlink packet access' (HSDPA) handsets would also be considered depending on government policy.

LGEIL would export over five lakh units of IT components and personal computers from the Ranjangoan plant, which would be doubled every year, he said.

The South Korean LG Electronics Inc, has shifted its UK-based microwave oven manufacturing facility to its Ranjangaon plant, "Microwave ovens are not a high-value product and moving to India helps cut down cost, as India offers cheap labour and raw materials compared with that in UK," said Kwang-Ro Kim, president, South West Asia, LG Electronics Inc and managing director, LGEIL.

The plant is scheduled to go on steam early next month and produce 1.2 lakh units per annum mainly for exports to other countries. The capacity of the plant would be ramped up to around two lakh units per year in 2006, he said, adding, the new unit would function under the Indian subsidiary.

The company is also planning to more than double its R&D strength to around 300 from 115, he said.