From mobile phones to chips, Indian manufacturing & its exports enters golden era

 In 2018,  South Korean giant Samsung inaugurated the World’s largest mobile factory in India.  The 35-acre facility at Sector 81 in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, saw Prime Minister Narendra Modi and South Korean President Moon Jae-in officially inaugurating it together — placing the country firmly on the global manufacturing map.

Even before that, the Country saw a massive turnaround in mobile manufacturing. Before 2014,  there were two mobile manufacturing factories and now, more than 

200 manufacturing units have been set up in India, producing millions of devices and exporting them to other countries.

Fast forward to 2023. Led by locally-manufactured mobile phones, India’s electronics industry saw record exports of electronic goods at an estimated Rs 1,85,000 crore in FY22-23 — compared to Rs 1,16,936 crore in FY21-22 — marking a whopping 58 per cent increase.

According to data by the India Cellular and Electronics Association (ICEA), mobile phone exports made history by crossing the USD 10 billion threshold for the first time in any fiscal year, reaching an estimated USD 11.12 billion (over Rs 90,000 crore) in FY23.

This growth has been primarily driven by the Apple ecosystem, which alone grossed a record $5 billion in exports from India in FY23.

The country has now taken a leap in manufacturing IT hardware (laptops, servers, tablets), semiconductors and more.

Vedanta-Foxconn Semiconductors Limited (VFSL),  a joint venture between Foxconn and Vedanta Group, is one such example. Vedanta and Foxconn signed 

a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Gujarat Government last year to invest Rs 1,54,000 crore to set up the semiconductor and display manufacturing plant which is India’s first.

In April, Vedanta Group signed MoUs with 20 Korean companies from the display glass industry for the development of an electronics manufacturing hub in the Country.

The Centre last week approved an updated production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for IT hardware, nearly doubling the overall outlay for the scheme to around Rs 17,000 crore.

The tenure of the programme will be applicable for six years and the Government expects investments worth Rs 2,430 crore in the scheme.