After Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s recent remark that Indians use ‘Made in China’ mobile phones, former CEO of NITI Aayog Amitabh Kant took to X platform and shared some “facts”, claiming India is the second largest producer of handsets in the world.
Rahul Gandhi while addressing a rally in Madhya Pradesh criticized the BJP government, and said there are ‘Made in China’ written on T-shirts, cameras and phones. The Congress will start a factory in Madhya Pradesh so that the youth of the state gets jobs. “We hope a day comes when a youth takes out his mobile phone in China and that phone has been manufactured in Madhya Pradesh,” he said.
Kant said in his post that this year, almost 100% of mobiles sold in Indian market were ‘Made in India’ compared to 98% in 2022. But in 2014, almost 81% of India’s mobile handset demand was met from Chinese imports.
He further posted the fact that during 2014-2022, India crossed 2 billion mobile handset production. A report had mentioned in August that domestic production is set to hit 270 million handsets this calendar year compared to with 250 million a year ago.
Almost 20% of the mobile handsets produced in India are exported. Local manufacturing for mobiles has grown at 23% compounded annual rate between 2014-2022, he added.
The government has introduced Production Linked Incentive (PLI), Atma Nirbhar Bharat and Phased Manufacturing Program to increase local manufacturing and value addition, according to a report by Counterpoint Research.
Tarun Pathak, Research Director at Counterpoint, had said local manufacturing has significantly expanded over the years to meet the escalating domestic demand. In 2022, 98% of all mobile phone shipments from India were locally made. This was a staggering leap from the mere 19% at the inception of the current government in 2014. “Going forward, we may see increasing production, especially for smartphones, as India gears to bridge the urban-rural digital divide and also become a mobile phone exporting powerhouse,” Pathak said.
Comments
0 comment