“Made in India” on a phone box can mean several different things. It may describe substantial local value, a final assembly operation using imported components, or something in between. Political debate handles this ambiguity badly. Government supporters sometimes treat every assembled handset as proof that India has conquered electronics. Critics dismiss all assembly as cosmetic. I find both positions lazy. Assembly is a necessary industrial capability, but it is an opening chapter rather than the whole book.
The Union government deserves credit for recognising electronics as a strategic manufacturing sector and using incentives to attract scale. Budget allocations can be examined in documents such as the 2025–26 Expenditure Profile, while the institutional semiconductor push is described by the India Semiconductor Mission. These are real policy commitments. The question is whether India can convert subsidised production into a dense supplier ecosystem that continues investing when incentives decline.
Assembly is not fake—but it is fragile
A factory that assembles phones still employs people, develops quality-control routines, builds logistics capability and exposes suppliers to global production standards. Dismissing that work insults both workers and industrial reality. Every manufacturing ecosystem begins somewhere, and final assembly creates a customer for local parts. It can also support exports, reduce delivery time and help firms respond to Indian demand.
Yet the economic value of a smartphone is concentrated in processors, displays, memory, camera modules, radio components, software and intellectual property. If most of those arrive from abroad, India captures a narrower share. The vulnerability becomes visible when supply chains are disrupted or currency movements raise component costs. A successful assembly base can still depend heavily on decisions made in Shenzhen, Seoul, Taipei or California.
Policy must therefore measure domestic value addition, not merely shipment volume. The measurement should be transparent and component-specific. How much of the bill of materials is sourced locally? Which suppliers are Indian-owned? How much engineering occurs here? How many production tools are imported? Celebrating unit counts without answering those questions creates industrial theatre.
Why Chinese brands still understand the market
Chinese phone companies remain formidable in India because they built more than cheap devices. They created distribution networks, quick product cycles, localised software, retail incentives and service coverage. Their parent ecosystem can source displays, batteries, cameras, enclosures and chargers at extraordinary speed. India cannot dislodge that advantage through patriotic advertising alone.
Consumers are rational. A buyer with ₹15,000 will prioritise battery life, display quality, camera performance and repair access over a lecture on geopolitics. If an Indian brand offers weaker hardware at a higher price, nationalism may create curiosity but rarely sustained market share. Domestic firms require patient capital, design talent and supplier access—not protection from honest comparison.
The government should encourage competition while enforcing security, tax and consumer rules consistently across origins. Selective hostility creates uncertainty without building capability. The more durable strategy is to make India the place where every brand wants to design, source and manufacture increasing portions of its products.
Semiconductors require humility and endurance
Chip fabrication attracts grand announcements because fabs are visually impressive and strategically important. But semiconductor manufacturing is not one industry. It includes design, fabrication, assembly, testing, materials, gases, equipment, packaging and specialised services. India already has substantial chip-design talent. It should strengthen that advantage while building fabrication and advanced packaging capabilities suited to realistic demand.
Not every useful chip must be at the newest process node. Automobiles, power electronics, industrial equipment, telecom infrastructure and appliances use mature nodes in large volumes. A policy obsessed only with producing the most advanced smartphone processor risks chasing prestige before reliability. India can build strategic depth through power semiconductors, sensors, analogue chips and packaging while gradually developing more complex processes.
Water, electricity quality, clean-room operations and supplier consistency matter more than foundation-stone ceremonies. State governments competing for plants must publish infrastructure commitments and environmental safeguards. A fab cannot run on PowerPoint optimism. Nor should public subsidies conceal performance. Milestones, disbursements and production outcomes should be reported clearly.
Build the unglamorous supplier layer
Electronics policy often focuses on famous anchor companies. The deeper value lies in hundreds of less visible suppliers: precision-tool makers, moulding firms, chemical providers, testing laboratories, printed-circuit-board producers and logistics specialists. These businesses diffuse capability across the economy. They also make it harder for an anchor company to relocate when a subsidy ends.
Small suppliers need access to affordable capital and certification support. Global customers demand tight tolerances and traceability; upgrading to those standards is expensive. Shared testing facilities, technical institutes and supplier-development programmes can lower the barrier. Incentives should reward technology transfer, local procurement and workforce training rather than simply factory size.
Education policy belongs inside this strategy. India needs technicians who can maintain equipment, process engineers who can reduce defects and managers who understand high-volume quality. A factory cannot be staffed entirely by elite chip designers. Polytechnics and industrial training institutes should work with plants on curricula, apprenticeships and instructor development.
Success means surviving after subsidy
Production-linked incentives are useful when they change investment decisions and create lasting clusters. They become wasteful when companies collect benefits for activity that vanishes once payments stop. Every scheme should have an exit theory. What cost, skill or supplier advantage will keep production in India afterward? If officials cannot answer, the incentive is purchasing temporary statistics.
I also want more honesty in political communication. India has made genuine progress in electronics manufacturing and exports. Saying so does not require pretending that import dependence has disappeared. Indeed, transparent acknowledgement of gaps would make the achievement more credible. Citizens understand that industrialisation is difficult. They are less forgiving when slogans outrun factory reality.
“Make in India” should ultimately mean more than where the final screws were tightened. It should mean that an Indian engineer helped design the board, a domestic supplier produced the enclosure, a local laboratory validated the radio, an Indian plant packaged the chip and a service network kept the device operating. No single phone will achieve all of this immediately. The goal is a rising share of value and knowledge across generations of products.
Chinese brands will continue to dominate important segments until Indian firms and factories match their combination of cost, speed and ecosystem depth. That is not a national humiliation; it is a competitive benchmark. The government’s direction is broadly correct. Its challenge is to move from attracting production to rooting capability. Assembly gave India a foothold. Supplier density, engineering and intellectual property will determine whether we climb.
