Our previous post in the series looked at initiatives concerning Made In India. Today’s post briefly covers initiatives for the mobile device market that are related to Make In India. (Find the first piece here)
Pursuit of the “Make in India” policies have seen Foxconn announce it will construct and start up a new Foxconn Interconnect Technology factory facility in Telangana, India, to manufacture Apple AirPods. Plant construction, pending proper siting, and permitting, would begin in late 2023, with production to begin in 2024. Media reports of Apple being the party requesting the location in India are unconfirmed though Apple approval was likely sought.
Foxconn employs hundreds of thousands producing Apple products in China. The placement of even a smaller facility in India is considered a win by the Indian Government. An existing Foxconn facility in Tamil Nadu expects to grow employment from 17,000 workers to 70,000 over the next two years. The hope of the Indian government is for Apple to export units to global markets from India besides serving the domestic Indian market, where it has a tiny, though very affluent, market share. The production by the assembly of iPhones in India will also eliminate import tariffs and other likely logistics costs, promoting another app ecosystem and competitor to Android-based units (that have more than a 95% market share in India now).
Samsung’s factory in Noida, India, captured production volumes previously set for Vietnam. This assembly plant creates most units for the Indian domestic market and some for export.
Xiaomi has been assembling phones in India since 2015 for more than 99% of smartphones -smart devices it sells in India. A small number of smartphones were assembled for export to Bangladesh and Nepal in 2022. Xiaomi announced they will continue to expand export production as the “remission of duties or taxes on export products” regulations from the Government went clearly into effect. There are seven factory facilities for Xiaomi in India in partnership with Foxconn and Flex, Ltd (Singapore). Four factories are in Sri City, Andhra Pradesh, and two are in Tamil Nadu, and one is in Noida.
This “Make in India” result is the type of action described by EkaLore’s Dynamic India set of strategies. The smartphone/smart device market is key to expanding advantages for India in a globally competitive marketplace for electronics and expanding competition in the domestic Indian marketplace.
The final post in the Smarter Every Day series will look at an early leader in the Indian mobile device marketplace, Xiaomi, its competition with Samsung and developments that are opening the market to its competitors.
You can find other posts on the unique challenges and opportunities for Dynamic India at www.ekalore.com/india-business
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