Sollers execs' co starts making TVs at former Mazda JV in Vladivostok
MOSCOW. Oct 30 (Interfax) - Alter Invest, the company owned by Sollers senior executives that holds a controlling stake in the Russian automaker, has announced the launch of contract assembly of smart TVs at part of the facilities of the former Mazda Sollers joint venture in Russia's Far East, which is now called AIT LLC and builds Sollers buses.
The new facility was set up on the basis of Sunrise Electronics LLC, which was founded a year ago. The company was registered at the end of September 2025 at the same address in Vladivostok that was home to Sollers' joint venture with Mazda, which left Russia, the Unified State Register of Legal Entities (USRLE) showed. The new company's charter capital is 10 million rubles, its only declared core business is production of consumer electronics and its sole owner is Alter Invest.
Alter Invest said the television production line was set up at the former Mazda engine plant, in a building that is separate from the main assembly plant that produced automobiles under the Japanese brand. The new TV facility includes an assembly and quality control line, cleanroom and test lab with equipment for product testing.
The facility has the technological capacity to manufacture TVs with screen sizes up to 120 inches. It plans to initially produce up to 600,000 TVs per year, with a view to doubling production to 1.2 million in future.
The project operates on the model of contract production for brands in the portfolios of consumer electronics distributors who work on the Russian market. The anchor client is DNS, a major electronics and appliance retailer.
"The initiative to develop smart TV production in Vladivostok is based on two strong competitive advantages. Foremost, this is the project team's expertise in organizing high-tech production and building processes in line with world standards of quality. The second key advantage is the logistics efficiency of the site in Vladivostok, which makes it possible to significantly reduce the time it takes to deliver components from Southeast Asian countries, as well as produce and deliver finished product to retail chains throughout Russia. I am confident that the new facility will be in demand among all television distributors who aim to increase their share of the Russian market," Alter Invest co-owner and CEO Nikolai Sobolev said.
Alter Invest co-owner Zoya Kaika, who also serves as the deputy CEO of PJSC Sollers, told reporters that the automaker cannot currently fully utilize the plant in Vladivostok for automobile production due to current circumstances and tighter regulation. As a result, it is partly engaged in building small batches of Sollers buses, and also serves as a base for quickly launching and testing demand for certain products
"If we see that there is demand and it makes sense to engage in deeper localization, as regulation requires, we move the product to the European part of Russia, where at our other plants we can ensure not only welding and painting, but also, most importantly, localization thanks to suppliers of components, who are also primarily located in the European part of the country. Therefore, we face the fairly serious question of diversifying the Far Eastern plant's profile. At the same time, we intend to continue to develop specifically industrial projects there, projects to manufacture high-tech products," Kaika said.
She said Sollers and Alter Invest do not plan to enter the Russian market with their own electronics brand, they intend to specifically provide contract assembly services. Sunrise Electronics is not within the immediate perimeter of the Sollers Group, she added.
Kaika also said that the plant's location in the Far East will give the electronics assembly project a competitive edge in logistics.
"Right now the largest producer of televisions for the Russian market is located in Belarus, and the rest are in the European part of Russia. The problem is that all these plants work with components that come from Southeast Asia, China. Incoming logistics for components are very long, particularly since they all move by sea and are then shipped to various regions of Russia. After this, the Russian production facility ships these televisions throughout the country, which additionally extends the time it takes to deliver the final product to a retail chain," Kaika said.
"Our project proposes to reduce the time from the moment an order is placed to the television getting to the retail chain to at least 20-25 days. Of course, this is extremely beneficial for retail chains in terms of ensuring their presence on the market of the Far East and Siberia. But we also believe that, in terms of logistics expenses and our production costs, we will be competitive so as to also supply retail chains in the European part of Russia from this plant," Kaika said.
Alter Invest has not disclosed the amount of investment that is going into the TV assembly project.
A company spokesman told reporters that the project will bring positive synergy to Sollers, even though it is not directly related to the automaker's business. The launch of the new production line will make it possible to use the part of the plant that remains unused, but continues to be maintained, not mothballed, and thus essentially generating losses.
