India requires additional investments of ₹10,000–15,000 crore in printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturing over the next two to three years to bring the country’s import dependence below 50%, according to JS Gujral, MD, Syrma SGS.
“India currently produces only about ₹5,000 crore worth of PCBs. Three years from now, we expect domestic PCB production to rise to around ₹20,000 crore, while demand will be around ₹70,000 crore,” Gujral said.
How is the domestic demand presently met?
Domestic PCB demand is estimated at around ₹50,000 crore with only about 10% of this is met locally, while the remaining 90% (close to ₹40,000 crore) is imported, primarily from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan.
The company’s PCB arm, Syrma Strategic Electronics, is among the first seven projects approved under the Centre’s Electronics Component Manufacturing Scheme (ECMS), aimed at expanding India’s component base and deepening its electronics value chain. Other beneficiaries include Amber Enterprises and Kaynes, together investing around ₹12,000 crore across multiple phases. Gujral said that even after these investments, India will meet only 30–35% of its PCB requirement, as demand is expected to grow to ₹70,000 crore in the next three to four years, at a compounded rate of 13–14%.
Likely changes in India’s consumption patterns
PCB components — the passive parts like resistors, capacitors and inductors, and active parts such as transistors and integrated circuits — form the core of every electronic device. India’s per capita electronics consumption at $80 remains far below the global average of $378–400 and the $1,200–1,500 levels in developed markets such as the US, Japan and Europe. PCB consumption is expected to grow with rising spends on electronic goods and increasing use of electronics across sectors including automotive (particularly EVs), industrial equipment, data centres and battery energy storage systems.
“If India’s per capita electronics consumption increases to even $150 per person, that alone translates into roughly ₹12 lakh crore of additional electronics consumption per year,” Gujral said.
The Centre’s ECMS policy is intended to meet this expanding domestic demand and reduce the annual PCB import bill. Syrma SGS on Monday broke ground for a ₹1,500-crore PCB manufacturing plant in Andhra Pradesh. Trial production at the 7-lakh sq ft facility is expected by December 2026, with commercial production planned for April 2027.
On the electronics manufacturing front, Syrma SGS has tied up with Taiwan’s MSI and Japan’s Dynabook to assemble high-end gaming and professional laptops for the domestic market.
The “real value” in the IT hardware segment, Gujral said, comes only with assembling or manufacturing motherboards. “My Production Linked Incentives (PLI) does not get activated with only laptop assembly; I have to manufacture the motherboard,” he said. The challenge, he added, is that India currently lacks the volume to make motherboard production economically viable.
Syrma SGS is in talks with global original design manufacturers (ODMs) and technical partners to shift motherboard manufacturing to India. “For that to be viable, we are asking for access to their global requirements so we can make for India and also export motherboards. We hope it happens sooner rather than later,” he added.
