However, the executives informed that the company’s top management has told the government that it might explore similar opportunities in the future
Samsung is not participating in the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for telecom equipment manufacturing as it is not looking to commit new investments in a market where it has only one client, as per two top executives of the company.
Samsung supplies equipment to Reliance Jio for its 4G network, along with supplying equipment for the recent 5G trials it is holding in India.
However, the executives informed that the company’s top management has told the government that it might explore similar opportunities in the future.
The South Korean conglomerate informed the decision to the telecommunications department in a video conferencing meeting on Wednesday.
The supplies have been mostly coming from its plants in Vietnam, South Korea and China where there is sufficient capacity to manufacture for Jio’s requirements, the executives said. Moreover, imports from Korea and Vietnam are at zero duties through the free trade agreement route.
“Hence, Samsung did not find the business need to invest in another new facility in India right now since it already enjoys zero import duties and more so since it has just one client in the country,” one of the executives said, adding that a greenfield plant would involve around Rs 800-1,000 crore investment.
The telecom PLI scheme, for which the DoT sought applications recently, has a budget outlay of Rs 12,195 crore and is aimed at making India a global hub for such manufacturing of telecom networking equipment.
Samsung has already participated in the PLI scheme for mobile phones and was the only company to surpass both investment and output targets in the first fiscal year ended March 2021.
