Korean electronics giant, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd, says it plans to expand its mobile phone production capacity in India by six times by 2008.

According to H C Ryu, managing director, Samsung Telecommunications India, a wholly owned unit Samsung, the new capacity could come up at any of its three mobile phone manufacturing units at Manesar in Haryana, Noida on the outskirts of the capital or Chennai.

Samsung competes with Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson in India

Ryu said Samsung wanted a double-digit market share for coloured GSM handsets in India''s 4.5-million piece per month market, up from the current 7 per cent market by the end of the year. The fresh demand, he said, would come from the rural areas as the urban markets were saturated.

The company, which started production in March 2006, expects to produce 2 million handsets during 2007-08, up from 1.2 million handsets in 2006-07.Of this, the domestic market would account for sales of between 60 and 70 per cent, up from 50 per cent in the last financial year.

Samsung launched three new models priced between Rs12,000 and Rs15,000 in New Delhi today.