New Delhi: Lenovo has announced setting up of a second manufacturing plant in the country in Himachal Pradesh at a cost of $11 million.

The new plant will have a capacity of two million units of desktops and notebooks in an year.

The plant, which is expected to be operational in the third quarter of the year, would enable Lenovo to optimise its supply chain, improve competitiveness and direct management control in the Indian market.

“Indian market holds strategic importance to us and the new plant at Baddi in Himachal Pradesh would help us cater to the entire domestic market and improve cost as well as customer experience,” Lenovo Global Manufacturing vice president Jeff Gallinat told reporters on 26 July 2007.

He said the plant will be built in four acres of land. It would create 350 jobs.

The new plat would undertake manufacturing, product configuration, value added distribution and customers services, logistics and customer support and distribution of after-market and visual products.

At present, the company has a plant in Pondicherry which provides employment to 280 people. Its capacity is one million units per year.

Lenovo had opened an innovation centre in Mumbai last year and also announced a worldwide marketing hub in Bangalore a few days ago.

According to the Manufacturer’s Association for Information Technology (MAIT), personal computer sales in India grew by 26% to cross the 6.3 million units mark in 2006-07 and is projected to touch 8 million units in 2008.