New Delhi: Over the last ten years, India has made rapid growths in electronics manufacturing, growing from Rs 1.9 lakh crore to Rs 9.52 lakh crore in production, matched by a 22 percent growth in exports. In 2014-15 the electronics exports growth from the country were valued at Rs 38,263 crore, but has reached Rs 2.41 lakh crore last month. Between 325 and 350 million mobile phones are being manufactured in India every year, with 99 percent of the phones sold in the country being domestically manufactured. In 2014-15, only 26 percent of the phones sold in India were manufactured in the country. Smartphone manufacturing has been one of the success stories of the Make in India movement.
S Krishnan, Secretary of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) said, “We are manufacturing between 325 to 350 million mobile phones a year in India and on an average there are about a billion mobile phones in use in India.We have virtually saturated the domestic market and that’s why you see that there’s a substantial uptick in the exports of mobile phones. This is where the Make in India program has been truly successful and the reason for that has been policy support from the government of India, especially in the form of the PLI scheme for mobile sector, which has been amongst the most successful PLI schemes that have been launched.”
How the PLI schemes boost employment
PLI schemes are production-linked incentives and have been so successful in the mobile phone manufacturing sector, that they have pushed the industry to exceed targets. The electronic sector employs about 1.2 million people across the country. India is taking steps to get better integrated with global supply chains, by finding innovative ways to add value. Under a business as usual scenario, the electronics manufacturing sector in India is on track to reach USD 278 billion by FY 30. The government is also focusing on encouraging semiconductor manufacturing in the country, with four plants getting speedily constructed.
