C-ESDM supported by ICA is organised a workshop “Inflexion point in Mobile Phone Manufacturing – PCB Population from 2018 – Are we ready?” today, at The Lalit, New Delhi. The workshop was sponsored by NMTronics India.
The workshop was inaugurated by Soni Saran Singh, Executive Director, NMTronics India Pvt Ltd. He said, “To meet the PMP target of 520 million phones in 2019-2020, it is imperative that the investment process should be finished by 1st quarter of 2018. While some sections of the industry want SMT operations to start with immediate effect, there are others who feels strongly that India is not ready for it and this should be postponed for another two years.”.
The evening was further graced by a panel discussion consisting of some of the electronics industry’s leading stalwarts such as – Pankaj Mohindroo, Chairman – Fast Track Task Force (FTTF) & National President Indian Cellular Association (ICA), Sanjay Kumar Rakesh, Joint Secretary – Electronics, Ministry of Electronics & IT (MeitY), A. Gururaj, Country Head & MD, Wistron India, Sudhir Hasija Chairman , UTL (Karbonn), Manish Agarwal, MD, Priyanka Telecom, Ramana Prasad Alam, MD – Amaraja Electronics Ltd, Sanjeev Aggarwal, Chief Manufacturing Officer, Lava International Ltd and Sunil Vachani, Executive Chairman, Dixon Technologies (India) Private Limited. The panelist brought into light the inflexion point in mobile manufacturing in India, the hurdles faced by the manufacturers and it’s possible solutions that can show the daylight to Indian mobile manufacturing.
Special guest of honour for the eveving was Dr. Ajay Kumar, Addl. Secretary, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) along with Ajay Prakash Sawhney, Secretary – MeitY who highlighted India’s march to be established as the global manufacturing hub for mobile handsets and components. The late evening was marked by the felicitation program to selected industry veterans for their outstanding contributions in shaping the PMP roadmap.
“By 2019-20, as perthe Phased Manufacturing Programme (PMP) forecast, India is expected to produce around 520 million phones. This would require about 170 SMT lines. By 2025, it is expected that India will produce 1.2 billion phones. This leads to the need of about 415 SMT lines. There will be many more SMT lines for the component players also, for e.g. charger and battery pack also have PCBs”, said Kumar.
Sawhney said, “Today we have an excellent fit between what India has and what countries like Taiwan, Japan, North Korea, Germany, Israel, China etc. has. Whenever I see such countries, I have seen youngsters are full of potential and a start-up means thinking on terms of device i.e., a new product itself. They are very confident that a road has been laid out in front of them. India has a lot of strengths specially a huge unserved market. Finding such a big unserved market is a tremendous opportunity. I believe wherever there is pain, there is an opportunity to innovate. It’s time that we start innovating the unserved India market. I am confident, if we can do so, nt only in mobile manufacturing sector, but we will very soon be at par with many countries across the globe in all aspects”.
By Baishakhi Dutta
