DL prepares expansion into tablets under rules of the PPB

The manufacturer of popular tablets DL intends to start this quarter the production of appliances within the basic productive process (PPB). It is the Government program that establishes the amount of national parts and components that the industry must use to have tax benefits. To this end, the DL will initiate the manufacture of plates, which will increase the index of nationalization of its current 50% of tablets to 95%.
The Director of DL, Paul Xu, informed the value that all documents for adherence to PPB have already been delivered and approved. The company is awaiting the signatures of the Ministry of science and technology (MCT), the Brazilian Ministry of development, industry and foreign trade (MDIC) and the Ministry of Finance (MF). "With the PPB, the price of the tablet may fall up to 10 percent," said Xu, who offers products at retail from $ 399.
According to the Superintendency of the Manaus free zone (Suframa), ten companies have approval to manufacture tablets in the country under the PPB. Of these, only four began, effectively, production. They are: Samsung, Philco, Digibras (CCE) and Bravvatech (mark Planet Tab).
To fit the PPB, the DL provides for increasing the physical space at its headquarters in the city of Santa Rita do Sapucaí, Minas Gerais. "The 10 thousand m2 we have today are increasingly tight," said Xu. Six months ago, the businessman rented two sheds beside the current headquarters, where also installed a mezzanine. With the modifications achieved over 4 thousand square meters, reaching the current space. But the expansion has been shown to be insufficient. "It is possible that we move to another address," he said.
The DL ended last year with 1 million units produced. The projection of Xu is to duplicate the volume this year, with a boost in business area. "The corporate market represented 10% of sales in 2012 and is expected to respond by 30% in 2013," said the entrepreneur, who does not disclose revenues. About 85% of the sales of the DL are the tablets, but the company has also sells DVDs, MP4 and MP5 players. The DL negotiates the sale of tablets with universities, publishers and a company. The designs are under wraps.
The Brazil ended the third quarter of 2012 as the world's 10th largest market for tablets, according to IDC. The expectation of the consultancy is that the country has exited the year with 2.9 million units sold.
With the expansion of production, Xu expects to double the number of employees, which today is of 230 people. "Let's quit 2013 with about 500 employees," said the Chinese businessman, who emigrated to Brazil 19 years ago and founded the DL in 2004. At the beginning, the company was selling household appliances imported from China, such as electric cookers for cooking rice. "The name DL was born ' sweet home '," said Xu. It didn't take to realize that the rapid growth of the consumer electronics market and reposicionasse the company. Today, according to Xu, DL stands for "Digital Life".