IAMAI report moots road map to manufacture 1 billion handsets annually

India’s mobile manufacturing lacks scale and depth despite its ambition to become global production hub, and the country now needs to “think big” by manufacturing at scale, producing high-end phones, and incentivising exports, according to a latest report. The report, titled ‘Make in India 2.0 (Revisiting Mobile Manufacturing)’ and published by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), said the global handsets market is worth about USD 467 billion (about Rs 32 lakh crore), and this demand is being met almost entirely by China, Vietnam, South Korea and Taiwan.

“India does not play any meaningful role, owing to severe limitations on its manufacturing capacity. India also lacks the supply chain that feeds into manufacturing mobile phones,” said the report. It noted that the import substitution strategy suffers from several downsides because it relies only on protections instead of rewarding production.