Record shipments, powered by PLI: Smartphone exports cross ₹1 trn in 5 mths

India's smartphone exports surge 55% in five months, led by Apple makers Tata and Foxconn, as PLI scheme drives scale and component ecosystem growth

Breaking all records, and despite a gloomy export picture owing to the tariff dispute with the United States, the smartphone sector, driven by the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme, has seen exports cross ₹1 trillion in the first five months of FY26, based on the vendor and industry data submitted to the government. 

This figure is 55 per cent higher than the ₹64,500 crore for the corresponding five-month period in the previous financial year. 

Apple’s two iPhone contract manufacturers — Tata Electronics and Foxconn — contributed over ₹75,000 crore, or nearly 75 per cent of smartphone exports for this period.

 

Export in five months this financial year is 10 per cent higher than the ₹90,000 crore achieved for the 12 months of FY23. 

The impact of the PLI scheme is clear from the fact that since FY23, for each successive year export has grown by nearly 50 per cent (in one year) or more than that. 

Proponents of the smartphone PLI scheme have long argued that achieving a global scale in production value is possible only through export, as shown in the case of China. 

The scale in turn can drive high-value addition with component manufacturing getting more depth in the country. 

During a recent review of various PLIs, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said value addition for smartphones had increased from 5-6 per cent in 2021 to 19 per cent by FY25. 

Simultaneously, this scale is also driving investment in the component, sub-assembly, and equipment ecosystem for smartphone manufacturing. 

Union Minister of Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw recently told Business Standard that his ministry had received applications for more than ₹50,000 crore investment under electronic-component manufacturing of the PLI scheme. He also pointed out despite turbulence India was on its way to hit smartphone exports of $30-35 billion in FY26 from $24 billion in the previous financial year. 

However, Pankaj Mahendroo, chairman, Indian Cellular and Electronics Association (ICEA), signalled caution. 

“PLI has been effective in boosting export and addressing cost disabilities. But we can’t rest on our laurels. We are up against two decades of unflinching Chinese government financial and infrastructure support to mobile exports.”

 

Over the past 11 years, the ranking of smartphones in India’s export increased from the 167th in 2015 to the top (by the harmonised system code in FY25), when the sector clocked ₹2 trillion.

 

The impact of the PLI scheme is clear also from the fact that Apple’s exports are up 70 per cent for the five-month period of the previous financial year, which is its last year under the scheme.

 

However, Samsung, whose five-year period for PLI was over in FY25, saw exports slow in the first five months by 21 per cent. 

 

Samsung exports most of its smartphones from Vietnam, which has a cost advantage over India.

 

Queries sent to Apple and Samsung went unanswered till the time of going to press.