By Rishika Sadam
HYDERABAD, Oct 30 (Reuters) – Omron Healthcare, the medical-device unit of Japan’s Omron Corp, opened its first Indian factory on Friday as part of its plans to reduce its reliance on Vietnam and target a largely untapped domestic market for blood pressure monitors.
India could eventually become one of Omron Healthcare’s biggest production bases, President and CEO Ayumu Okada told Reuters earlier this week, ahead of the inauguration of the factory in the southern Indian city of Chennai on Friday.
“We rely too much on the Vietnam factory,” she said, citing the risks of concentrating production in a single country or facility in the event of incidents or disasters.
The company is targeting an annual production capacity of about 3 million units by 2028, largely BP monitors, and could eventually rise to 3.5 million units if the plant runs three shifts, with other products such as nebulizers added later, Okada added.
More than 300 million people in India have hypertension, while penetration of BP monitors is below 5%, Okada said. “This is one of the reasons we really want to focus on the Indian market at first.”
Omron Healthcare hopes for the penetration of home BP monitors to roughly double to about 10% by 2030 as awareness increases. It held about 40% of India’s BP monitor market in 2025, according to company data.
Despite producing locally, Omron Healthcare does not currently plan to cut prices, Okada said.
The company also plans to supply Europe from the Chennai facility, which is expected to have approximately 120 employees as of November 2026, adding to products currently shipped to the region from Vietnam, although Okada did not provide a timeline.
(Reporting by Rishika Sadam; Editing by Dhanya Skariachan and Janane Venkatraman)
