iPhone exports from India continue to surge

Thanks to India's incentive scheme to develop a local ecosystem for mobile phone manufacturing, India's smartphone exports more than doubled in the first two months of the current fiscal year.

The Economic Times reported that according to data from the Indian Cellular and Electronics Association, in the first two months of fiscal 2023 (April 2023 to March 2024), smartphones worth INR200 billion (US$2.4 billion) were exported, up from INR90.66 billion from a year earlier.

iPhones accounted for 80% of the smartphone exports, followed by Samsung Electronics and other Indian brands. In May alone, INR100 billion of INR120 billion smartphones exported were iPhones, reported The Economic Times.

According to the Department of Commerce of India, India's primary mobile phone export destinations in April, the latest official data available, were the US, UAE, Netherlands, UK, and Italy, which constituted 75% of India's mobile phone exports for the period.

Thanks to the success of the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for large-scale electronics manufacturing, India managed to first reach import substitution before exporting mobile phones. Business Standard reported that more than 99% of mobile phones sold in India are made in India. Although the beneficiaries of the PLI scheme have only 20% of India's mobile phone market, they accounted for more than 80% of India's mobile phone exports in fiscal 2023.

Currently, Wistron, Foxconn, and Pegatron are making iPhones in India. Except for Wistron, which reportedly plans to sell its iPhone manufacturing plant to Tata, Foxconn is looking to expand its production capacity for iPhones, even EVs, in India. Reuters reported that Foxconn set a target of manufacturing 20 million iPhones a year at a new plant in Karnataka. According to JP Morgan, India's share of global iPhone production stood at a mere 7%, but it is anticipated to surge to 25% by the end of 2025.

Source: Department of Commerce of India, June 2023