From just two units to 300 in a decade, India’s mobile manufacturing revolution is rewriting records, powered by PLI schemes and policy reforms; updates Minister Jitin Prasada.
India’s mobile phone manufacturing sector has seen a 28-fold growth over the past decade, driven largely by the government’s production-linked incentive (PLI) schemes. This update was highlighted in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday by Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Jitin Prasada.
According to the data released by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), mobile phone production has surged from ₹180 billion in 2014–15 to ₹5.45 trillion in 2024–25. Exports of mobile phones have grown 127 times, from ₹15 billion to ₹2 trillion.
India, once a net importer of mobile phones, now meets almost all domestic demand locally, with imports down to just 0.02% from 75% of demand a decade ago. The report stated that the country is now the world’s second-largest mobile phone manufacturer, with the number of production units rising from just 2 in 2014–15 to 300 in 2024–25.
Introduced under the National Policy on Electronics (NPE) 2019, the PLI Scheme for Large Scale Electronics Manufacturing (LSEM) and PLI 2.0 for IT Hardware have played a key role in establishing India as a major global hub for electronics.
The broader electronics sector has also flourished substantially. Production of electronic goods has grown six times, from ₹1.9 trillion to ₹11.3 trillion over the same period. Exports have expanded eightfold, reaching ₹3.27 trillion.
The PLI for LSEM has so far attracted investments of ₹123.9 billion, resulting in cumulative production worth ₹8.45 trillion and exports of ₹4.66 trillion. It has also created 130,000 direct jobs.
Meanwhile, the PLI 2.0 for IT Hardware has drawn ₹7.1713 billion in investment, yielding production of ₹121.9584 billion and generating 5056 direct jobs till June 2025.
The minister further notified that complementing these initiatives are schemes like SPECS (for electronic components and semiconductors), the Electronics Manufacturing Clusters (EMC and EMC 2.0), and tax reforms. The government has also allowed 100% FDI in the sector, contributing to total FDI of US$4.07 billion since 2020–21. Of this, US$2.8 billion came from MeitY PLI beneficiaries alone.
India’s value addition in electronics manufacturing now stands at 18–20%, showing a strong move up the value chain.
