Apple vendors, Samsung apply for PLI; govt plans Rs 11-trn worth production

The proposals by electronics manufacturers will create 300,000 direct and 900,000 indirect jobs, says Ravi Shankar Prasad

India is targeting production worth Rs 11.50 trillion over next five years, including Rs 7 trillion of exports, in electronics components and mobile manufacturing through the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme, said Minister of Electronics and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad during a virtual press conference on Saturday.

A total of 22 companies have filed their application under the PLI scheme and the list includes international mobile phone manufacturers such as Samsung, Foxconn Hon Hai, Rising Star, Wistron and Pegatron.

Out of these, 3 companies namely Foxconn Hon Hai, Wistron and Pegatron are contract manufacturers for Apple iPhones. The list also includes Indian companies such as Lava, Dixon Technologies and Bhagwati (Micromax). "These (domestic) companies are expected to expand their manufacturing operations in a significant manner and grow into national champion companies in mobile phone production," Prasad said.

"The proposals will create 300,000 direct and 900,000 indirect jobs. The domestic value addition is expected to grow from the current 15-20 per cent to 35-40 per cent in case of mobile phones and 45-50 per cent for electronic components," the minister said.

Currently, India exports only $1.6 billion-worth of mobile devices. That works out to less than 0.5 per cent share of the global exports of devices.

According to ICEA, the new move could push India up in the top three league for mobile handset exports. The manufacturing of mobile handsets, which has been a top priority of the government, is a focus area of the National Policy on Electronics 2019 with a target of 1 billion mobile handsets by 2025, valued at $190 billion, including 600 million mobile handsets for export.

PLI scheme for large scale electronics manufacturing was notified on April this year. The Scheme extends an incentive of 4 per cent to 6 per cent on incremental sales (over base year) of goods under target segments that are manufactured in India to eligible companies, for a period of five years subsequent to the base year. The scheme was open for filing applications till 31 July and incentives are applicable under the scheme from August 1.