By 2020 around 96 percent mobile phones sold in India will be manufactured locally, and that the manufacturing rate will increase from 6.1 percent in 2016 to 25.8 percent in 2019, states a report by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and Enixta Innovations.
The ‘Indian Mobile Phone market: Emerging Opportunities for fulfilling India’s Digital Economy Dream’ report noted that two out of every three mobile phones in India were domestically produced.
The mobile phone components including battery packs, non-electronic parts, accessories, packaging and can be manufactured locally without any hassle. Although sourcing main electronic components locally is will take a longer time.
The report said that the localization number is far below the rate in countries like Vietnam. Notably, domestic mobile phones production in India is limited to assembling/packaging of SKD (Semi-Knocked Down) kits.
Dr. Ajay Kumar, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, at the launch of the report said that in the coming five to 10 years, nearly 25 percent of the global economy would be determined by the digital economy. He further said that the Internet economy was the biggest opportunity in India and can make it even bigger than the ITeS industry.
At present India stands to be the second largest when it comes to the smartphone market in the world in terms of users but is expected to be the largest for global smartphone sales in the next few years.
The report shows that 38 new mobile manufacturing units have been set-up in India between 2015 and October 2016. The manufacturing plants have a manufacturing capacity of 20 million units per month and they generate nearly 40,000 direct jobs.
Domestic mobile manufacturing industry in India in FY 2019-20 is expected to be Rs 135,000 crore as compared to Rs 94,000 in FY 2016-17. The market size of domestic manufacturing for smartphones in FY 2019-20 will be Rs 120,200 crore.
By Baishakhi Dutta