The mobile phone industry of India is usually dominated by the Chinese companies because of the huge demand of the budget phones in our nation.
But can we reduce dependency on Chinese goods and be self sufficient in meeting the domestic demand as well as exporting 100 per cent “Made in India” phones?
So far , India’s mobile phone imports were always higher than its exports. In the financial year 2019-20 , India exported 41.5 million phones and imported 5.6 million phones a net export of 36 million units.
But does it mean India is manufacturing these Mobile Phones?
High export of mobile phones doesn’t mean they are produced entirely here . according to the India Cellular and Electronics Association mobile phone manufacturing units in the country have grown from just 2 in 2014 to 268 in 2018 .
Further data shows that, More than being made in India, cell phones are mostly assembled in India .
In 2017 , the government launched a phased manufacturing programme under which it incentivises local sourcing of parts.Under this, importing products such as chargers, microphones, cameras (for phones), etc. would invite custom duties, but not for the parts required to manufacture them. Consequently importing a full mobile phone would be costlier than importing its parts and assembling them in India.
Although it has indeed increased local value addition in mobile phone manufacturing in India from6% in 2016 to 17% in 2018, but over 300 components and sub-components are required to manufacture one mobile phone which can't be fully made in India till now.
With the same policy , a 100% “Made in India” phone is “virtually impossible ” in such a scenario. It would take years of policy reforms for anything beyond 50% of value addition . It took China roughly two decades to clock a value addition of over 60 per cent .
But government approved 41000 crores booster for the mobile manufacturing industry . Such policy reforms will be helpful but will take time to make any change .
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