India aims to surpass China in mobile production, says Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad

Prasad said that the government is looking to make India a hub of other electronic products as well with the expansion of the PLI scheme to other sectors

With the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme attracting global leading mobile phone manufacturers to India, the country is now aiming to surpass China in the field, IT and Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Monday.

“PLI is designed to enable global champion companies to come to India and make Indian companies national champion,” Prasad said at the annual general meeting of industry chamber FICCI.

He said that the government is looking to make India a hub of other electronic products as well with the expansion of the PLI scheme to other sectors.

India became the second largest mobile manufacturing country in 2017.

According to research firm TechArc, India’s mobile phone exports in 2020 are estimated to record the highest ever shipments of $1.5 billion by value, 98% of which would be smartphones.

From January to September 2020, a total of 12.8 million mobile phones were exported from India, said the research firm.

The National Policy on Electronics 2019 (NPE) envisages an electronic manufacturing turnover of more than Rs 26 lakh crore by 2025, out of which Rs 13 lakh crore is expected to come from the mobile phone segment.

The Centre launched a PLI scheme under which eligible companies can get sops of around Rs 48,000 crore.

So far, the government has cleared 16 proposals from domestic and international companies entailing an investment of Rs 11,000 crore under the PLI scheme to manufacture mobile phones worth Rs 10.5 lakh crore over the next five years.

The companies include iPhone maker Apple’s contract manufacturers Foxconn Hon Hai, Wistron and Pegatron, apart from Samsung and Rising Star.

In this fiscal, India’s handset production almost reaching closer to last year’s output, which was Rs 2.14 lakh crore, despite prolonged lockdown and shutdown of factories.