Asus on Thursday said it has partnered with Foxconn to begin local manufacturing of smartphones in Sri City in Andhra Pradesh, a move that will help the Taiwanese tech major bolster its presence in the burgeoning Indian handset market.

The company, which will kick-start manufacturing operations with Zenfone 2 Laser followed by ZenFone Go, aims to manufacture 1.5 lakh smartphones a month by the end of the current financial year. This will account for almost 80% of sales in India. No financial details were, however, disclosed.

“India offers us a huge opportunity as smartphone penetration is just 10%. We are excited to announce our local manufacturing facility that will cater to the growing demands of the market,” Asus India country manager (system business group) Peter Chang told PTI.

India, one of the fastest growing smartphone markets globally, is poised to overtake the US as the second-largest market in next few years. Shipments in India grew 44% to 26.5 million units in April-June, says the data by research firm IDC.

Also, over the past few months, global smartphone makers such as Xiaomi, Motorola and Gionee have commenced assembling their handsets in India, where the government is pushing local manufacturing through its ‘Make in India’ initiative.

“It is an opportune time to make the announcement as it will enable us to bring our cutting edge products to consumers who are looking for features and design sensibilities of a high-end smartphone at an economic price,” he said.

Chang added: “We are aggressively targeting the Indian market. We aim to achieve five percent market share in the country by next year.”