There will be manufacturing of mobile phones worth 50 billion dollars in India : Ashwini Vaishnav

NEW DELHI : Mobile phones are being manufactured extensively in India. Information Technology Minister Shri Ashwini Vaishnav said on Thursday that in the current financial year i.e. FY 24, there will be mobile manufacturing worth $50 billion and about $15 billion will also be exported from this category.

While interacting with the media, the Union Minister said that mobile phones have now become the fourth largest export category from India. This means that mobile phone export ranks fourth among the categories exported from India.

“In the next year or two, you will see that mobile phone and electronics exports have reached the top 2 or top 3 positions in the export list,” he said.

Currently, processed petroleum, diamonds, iron, steel and pharmaceuticals make up the top 5.

India has been logging more than $1 billion in smartphone exports since October 2022. In the first 6 months of the FY24 (2023-24) financial year, smartphone exports stood at $6.53 billion as compared to $10.95 billion exports in the entire FY23 (2022-23), official data from the Commerce Department shows. The data has a lag of two months.

A large chunk of smartphone exports is tied to the performance of one company- Apple India – which makes up 62 per cent of all smartphone exports. In the April-October period of FY24, the Cupertino-headquartered company through its three vendors in India exported iPhones worth $5 billion, according to industry and government data.

Overall, electronic exports from the country stood at $15.77 billion in FY24. In the previous year, this was $28 billion.

Vaishnaw said the fast growth of smartphone exports shows the quick pace at which India’s export basket is diversifying, asserting that the government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative has undoubtedly become a success.

“The country’s economy is at a major inflection point. India has reached a point, where we are getting ready to do $1trillion worth of exports very soon,” he said.

India’s overall exports stood at $775.7 billion in FY23, of which merchandise exports stood at $450.4 billion, with services making up $325.4 billion.