Riding on rising smartphone exports under the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, the electronics industry has become the country's fastest-growing export for the period between April 2022 and February 2023.
Over the same period last year, electronics exports were up 61.57 per cent, Business Standard said citing data released by the Ministry of Commerce & Industry for the top 30 exports.
In fact, electronics exports crossed $20 billion, reaching Rs 166,456.54 crore against Rs 103,027.19 crore for the same period in FY21-22.
Electronics exports increased by 40.5 per cent in FY22 (the first year of the PLI plan), but they lagged behind petroleum goods, whose exports increased by 152 per cent.
In the following year, however, exports of electronics outgrew those of petroleum products.
The report added that the significant increase in electronics exports could be linked to increased dependency on mobile devices. These accounted for nearly 47 per cent of the total electronics exports, up from 37 per cent in the 11 months of April 2021 to February 2022.
According to ICEA, mobile phone exports between April 2022 and February 2023 exceeded $9.5 billion, or Rs 78,375 crore, more than doubling the amount in the same period last year.
The big increase in smartphone exports is largely due to Apple’s three contract manufacturers — Foxconn, Pegatron and Wistron, said the report. These three companies, all participants in the PLI scheme, contributed nearly 46 per cent (Rs 36,052 crore) of the total smartphone exports clocked in the first 11 months.
Another major player was Samsung which along with Apple accounted for the majority of the country's exports.