Telecom: After China, India is now the second-largest mobile phone maker
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: After China, India has become the second-biggest mobile phone-making country in the world.
China accounted for 67 percent of global handset production in 2021.
Mobile phone shipments from India crossed the 2 billion cumulative units mark under the “Make in India” initiative during 2014-2022, the media, quoting global company Counterpoint Research, reported on Wednesday.
Led by the Centre’s push under the Make in India initiative, higher internal demand, and rising digital literacy, India registered an annual growth rate of 23 percent.
In 2022, over 98 percent of shipments in the overall Indian market were made in India, compared to just 19 percent in 2014, the report said.
“We have also seen increasing local value addition and supply chain development in the country. Local value addition in India currently stands at an average of more than 15 percent, compared to the low single digits eight years ago,” Tarun Pathak, Research Director at Counterpoint, said.
The Phased Manufacturing Program (PMP), Make in India, Production-Linked Incentive (PLI), and Atm-Nirbhar Bharat (Self-Reliant India) programs have contributed to an increase in local manufacturing and value addition for smartphones.
“Under the ‘Make in India’ initiative, the Centre introduced the Phased Manufacturing Program and increased import duties on completely built units and some key components over the years to push local manufacturing and value addition.
“Under the Self-Reliant India scheme, the government introduced the PLI scheme for 14 sectors, including mobile phone manufacturing. Due to all this, exports from India have increased,” Counterpoint said.
“Many companies are setting up units in the country for manufacturing mobile phones as well as components, leading to growing investments, increasing jobs, and overall ecosystem development. The government now intends to capitalize on its various schemes to make India a ‘semiconductor manufacturing and export hub.’
“Going forward, we may see increasing production, especially for smartphones, as India gears to bridge the urban-rural digital divide and also become a mobile phone exporting powerhouse,” Pathak added.
