by The Global Electronics Manufacturing Diversification Has India as Its Primary Alternative to China and the Numbers Are Real
Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat
India as Electronics Manufacturer: The China Plus One Strategy’s Biggest Beneficiary
NEW DELHI / CHENNAI — Apple has been manufacturing iPhones in India since 2017, primarily through Foxconn and Pegatron assembly operations in Tamil Nadu and other states, and has expanded India’s share of its global production to approximately 14 percent of iPhone output — a figure that has grown with each production cycle as the geopolitical case for manufacturing diversification has strengthened. Samsung manufactures phones and electronics at its Noida facility, which is one of the largest mobile phone manufacturing plants in the world. The “China Plus One” strategy — diversifying supply chains to reduce dependence on Chinese manufacturing — has India as its primary beneficiary in the electronics category.
The India manufacturing story in electronics is real but requires contextualizing: India is primarily an assembly location rather than a components manufacturing hub. The sophisticated components that go into iPhones — displays, chips, camera modules, batteries — still come predominantly from China, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan. What India adds is final assembly, which is the last step in the manufacturing process and typically the lowest value-added step. India is climbing the manufacturing ladder. It is not yet at the top.
The Government’s Role
India’s Production Linked Incentive scheme, which provides financial incentives to manufacturers who increase production in India and achieve scale, has been the primary policy mechanism driving the electronics manufacturing expansion. The PLI payments reduce the cost disadvantage of manufacturing in India relative to China, which has lower labor costs in comparable categories. The incentives work while they are funded; the question of whether Indian manufacturing becomes internationally competitive without incentives once the PLI period ends is the long-term test that the current expansion has not yet faced. Managing industrial policy through incentives produces capacity that is incentive-dependent; the technology manufacturing value chain rewards whoever can do the processing most cheaply. India is building. The components still come from elsewhere. The ladder has more rungs.
In Indian comedy, the “nosy neighbor” is not a character; she’s an institution, a surveillance state, and the reason everyone keeps their curtains closed.
In Indian comedy, the “nosy neighbor” is not a character; she’s an institution, a surveillance state, and the reason everyone keeps their curtains closed.