Smartphone exports from India crossed the `60,000-crore mark during the first nine months (April-December) of the current fiscal. According to government sources, this is 100% higher than exports during the same period last year and 33% higher than registered during the entire FY22 when the same stood at `45,000 crore.
With three months left in the current fiscal, smartphone exports are estimated to close at around `75,000 crore, officials said.
The main contributors to this massive growth are the three Apple contract manufacturers — Foxconn, Pegatron (both located in Tamil Nadu) and Wistron (located in Karnataka) — and Samsung.
Apple has contributed nearly 50% of the `60,000-crore exports thus far. Apple’s exports of iPhones from India has exceeded `30,000 crore by mid-January.
In the case of Samsung, exports have been somewhat sluggish in the last few months.
Apple has expanded its exports in a phased manner hitting the $1-billion mark for the five-month — April-August 2022 — period. It then increased its exports to an average of $0.5 billion each month from September to November 2022, finally accelerating to nearly $1 billion of iPhone exports in December 2022.
The smartphone production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme was the first and the largest of the 14 PLI schemes announced by the government, which has allocated an outlay of `40,995 crore towards it. This is nearly 20% of the total `2 trillion across all 14 PLI schemes.
Smartphone exports constituted approximately 35% of the total electronics exports of $15.1 billion during FY22. By contrast, in the first nine months of the current fiscal, smartphone exports constituted nearly 45% of the total electronics exports of $16.7 billion.
According to India Cellular and Electronics Association (ICEA), the industry association of mobile manufacturers, smartphone exports will contribute close to 50% of the total electronics exports at the end of the current financial year.
“Smartphone exports are key to achieving the $300-billion target for electronics manufacturing by 2026. We need to lower our input tariffs and forge a Components PLI 2.0 for continuing this export momentum and expanding value addition,” Pankaj Mohindroo, chairman, ICEA, told FE.
The industry has estimated that mobile manufacturing will contribute nearly 40% of the $300-billion electronics manufacturing by 2026 and nearly 50% of the $120-billion exports. At the end of the current fiscal, electronics exports are expected to reach closer to $20 billion and mobile exports will likely cross $9 billion.
