India is narrowing the gap with China and Vietnam in smartphone exports, bolstered by iPhone manufacturers’ efforts to establish the country as a significant hub for smartphone production.
According to the Economic Times, India is rapidly closing the gap with China and Vietnam in mobile phone exports, according to officials citing data from the International Trade Centre (ITC). While China and Vietnam experienced declines of 2.78% and 17.6%, respectively, in their mobile exports in fiscal 2024 (April 2023 to March 2024), India saw a significant surge of 40.5%. This increase amounted to India capturing nearly half of the reduction in mobile phone exports from China and Vietnam combined.
The surge in Indian mobile exports, totaling US$15.6 billion in fiscal 2023 compared to US$11.1 billion in the previous fiscal year, highlights the success of India’s smartphone production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme. Launched to attract supply chain shifts away from China, the PLI scheme has proven effective as major players like Apple expanded their manufacturing operations in India. Apple, for instance, doubled its production to $14 billion and increased exports to over $10 billion in FY24 alone, driven largely by iPhone manufacturing under the PLI initiative.
However, verifying the data mentioned in the report has proven challenging. DIGITIMES Asia noted discrepancies, as Vietnam’s trade data was not listed on the ITC site, and India’s latest available data was in the fourth quarter. Nevertheless, according to ITC data, excluding Hong Kong, China’s smartphone exports experienced a 2.56% decline year-on-year in fiscal 2024. According to data from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, smartphones (HS code 851713) exported from India grew by 42.15% in fiscal 2024 to US$15.57 billion.
One of the major contributors to India’s soaring exports of smartphones was Apple, whose suppliers have been ramping up investments in India. Business Standard reported that iPhone exports from India surpassed US$2 billion in the first two months of fiscal 2025. This amount represents 81% of India’s total iPhone production valued at US$2.6 billion. In May alone, Apple continued its strong performance from April, exceeding US$1 billion in iPhone exports.
