Qualcomm to localise module output in India, support partners' mfg plans

US-based chip major Qualcomm is localising automotive module production in India and is supporting its top-tier ecosystem partners in their plan to move manufacturing into the country, a senior company official has said.

Qualcomm Technologies, group general manager for automotive, industrial and embedded IoT, Nakul Duggal, told PTI that the company is investing heavily in India to support local automotive companies.

"We build a lot of modules. Those modules are typically built in Taiwan, or China, or Korea, but we are now actively working in India to localise this. We, of course, partner with our Tier 1 ecosystem, such that as they move their manufacturing to India, we have been supporting them," he said.

Duggal said that Qualcomm is a fabless company, which means it designs the chips but doesn't manufacture them.

"For us, it's really about being able to create opportunities in our supply chain to be able to direct that (manufacture)," he said.

Qualcomm has approximately 22,000 employees, or 60 per cent of its workforce, in India.

Duggal said that the company has a local team to support domestic car manufacturers.

Qualcomm has been bullish on chipsets for automobiles, especially electric vehicles. The company has partnered with all the major car OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), including Tata Motors, Mahindra, Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai, to provide them with chipsets for modernising cars.

It has the Snapdragon Elite chipset platform for telematics, infotainment and driver assistance, including ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems).

Duggal said that in 2026, there will probably be a dozen vehicles that will deploy its Snapdragon Cockpit Elite and Snapdragon Ride Elite SoC (System on Chip), which were announced in October 2024 and delivered to customers in early 2025.

He said that India has a substantial domestic footprint encompassing both domestic and global automakers that manufacture locally.

"There is a huge need for building products that cater to the needs of the Indian region. Rather than bringing in a product that is built for a global customer, build a product for a local customer. That necessitates for an OEM the need to have engineering capability, creative capability, to actually think about the needs of the local region, and we are starting to see that happen," he said.

Duggal said building an automotive product for the local market will generate a competitive advantage, and China has benefited from this trend.

The automotive segment of the company accounts for around 10 per cent of its global revenue, which is around $3.6 billion to $3.8 billion.

The company has set a target to double the total revenue from the automotive business to about $8 billion by 2029.