For the past few years, India has invested heavily in the production of electronic goods, and in December 2022, Apple became the first firm from the nation to export iPhones worth USD 1 billion in a single month.
December set a new month for the sector, according to an article in the Economic Times, with shipments of mobile phones totaling more than Rs 10,000 crore. According to Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the minister of state for electronics and IT, the goal of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is for mobile phone exports to rank among India’s top 10 exports by 2023.
Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that the government would take all the measures that are required for boosting the electronics manufacturing ecosystem in the country, in an interview with news agency PTI. In 2023, the government will look at widening the manufacturing base beyond mobile phone manufacturing.
“PM Narendra Modi ji’s vision for 2023 is mobile phone exports worth Rs 1 lakh crore, with mobile phones featuring in the Top 10 exported category,” Chandrasekhar said.
Mobile phone exports from India were around Rs 45,000 crore which was dominated by Apple and Samsung.
The Minister said that the government is working to broaden the electronic manufacturing ecosystem beyond mobile phones to increase global share in hearables and wearables segment, IT hardware, electronic components, etc.
As per a study by electronics component makers body ELCINA, the demand for components in 2020-21 was USD 32 billion (about Rs 2.65 lakh crore) for about a USD 70-billion (Rs 5.8 lakh crore) industry and of this, barely USD 10 billion (Rs 82,000 crore) was manufactured locally, and that too with a majority of imported raw materials.
While the Minister did not elaborate on the specific measures, official sources have shared that the government has plans to come up with a production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for hearables, wearables as well as an upgraded PLI scheme for IT hardware and electronics components to boost their local production.
“We are going to complement our mobile phone successes by broadening and deepening the ecosystem.
The semiconductor industry has used the deepening strategy. We obviously wish to expand our component industry. While we are expanding, we hope to succeed in the wearable, hearable, and server hardware markets in addition to the mobile phone market. All of these are fields that are expanding quickly on a worldwide scale, the minister noted.
One of the industries with the quickest growth rates worldwide is electronics. The lifestyle of the people of India has been substantially touched by and shaped by electronic products in the digital world. The Covid-19 pandemic-induced digital push is anticipated to increase demand for electronic gadgets around the globe. Additionally, it is predicted that the use of electronic gadgets will keep growing and remain a key factor in the development of the world economy.