Top Chinese smartphone maker Huawei confirmed on September 23 that it will manufacture smartphones in Chennai, giving to boost to the Central government's ambitious 'Make in India' programme.

Huawei, in association with OEM partner Flex Telecom, has set up a manufacturing plant in Chennai, planning to start producing the Honor series phones from the first week of October.

In a bid to create more brand awareness and make further inroads into the Indian smartphone market, Huawei also announced the opening of 200 new service centres, including over 30 exclusive Huawei outlets in India. It plans to extend it to 50,000 retail outlets by the end of 2016.

This retail network is expected to add to the existing 350 distributors in India to sell both Huawei and its subsidiary brand — the Honor series phones.

"I would like to congratulate Huawei on their commitment to pursue their 'Make in India' vision. The Government of India is pleased to see so much enthusiasm for our 'Make in India' initiative," Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union Minister, Information & Technology, Law and Justice, said in a statement. "We are working towards making India an electronic manufacturing hub. As India is set to become the second largest smartphone market, our government would like to invite even more businesses to come and manufacture in India. This is an opportune time to start manufacturing from India. The smartphone landscape in India is growing every day and such initiatives by technology leaders will help accelerate the growth of local manufacturing industry in India." 

Also read: Lenovo to open 150 service outlets in India by March 2017

Huawei is not the first company to commence local manufacturing of phones. Lenovo had, earlier in the year, pledged that over 50 percent devices, including the Vibe series and Moto series sold in the India, would be produced in its supply partner Foxconn's unit at Sriperambudur, Tamil Nadu.

Also read: 'Make in India': OnePlus partners with Foxconn to make smartphones locally

Even Xiaomi has similar arrangements with Foxconn in Andhra Pradesh.

Read more: Made in India: Xiaomi Launches Redmi 2 Prime

Samsung has been manufacturing its phones in India for a quite a few years now.