Locally Made Mobile Phones Cross 2 Billion Mark; India Becomes 2nd Biggest Mobile Manufacturing Country

According to market research firm Counterpoint Research’s "Made in India" service report, this was driven by huge internal demand, increasing digital literacy and the government's push.

Locally manufactured mobile phone shipments crossed the 2 billion cumulative units mark under the "Make in India" initiative during 2014-2022, registering a 23 per cent CAGR, a new report said on Monday. According to market research firm Counterpoint Research’s "Made in India" service report, this was driven by huge internal demand, increasing digital literacy and the government's push. India has also become the second-biggest mobile phone-producing country in the world.

“India has come a long way in mobile phone manufacturing. We have seen local manufacturing increase over the years to meet domestic demand. In 2022, more than 98% of shipments in the overall Indian market were ‘Made in India’, compared to just 19% when the current government took over in 2014. We have also seen increasing local value addition and supply chain development in the country. Local value addition in India currently stands at an average of more than 15%, compared to the low single digits eight years ago," Tarun Pathak, Research Director at Counterpoint, said in a statement.

In a bid to push local manufacturing and value addition, the Indian government has introduced schemes and initiatives such as the Phased Manufacturing Program (PMP), Make in India, Production Linked Incentive (PLI) and Atma-Nirbhar Bharat (Self-Reliant India).

"Many companies are setting up units in the country for manufacturing mobile phones as well as components, leading to growing investments, increasing jobs and overall ecosystem development. The government now intends to capitalize on its various schemes to make India a ‘semiconductor manufacturing and export hub’. Going forward, we may see increasing production, especially for smartphones, as India gears to bridge the urban-rural digital divide and also become a mobile phone exporting powerhouse.”

“The Indian government has launched and executed many schemes, which has resulted in a big jump in mobile phone manufacturing over the years. Under the ‘Make in India’ initiative, the government introduced the Phased Manufacturing Program and increased import duties on completely built units and some key components over the years to push local manufacturing and value addition. Due to all this, exports from India have increased. Going forward, the government is focused on making India a semiconductor hub. It has proposed a semiconductor PLI scheme and now is focusing more on infrastructure with a proposed investment of $1.4 trillion," said Prachir Singh, Senior Analyst.