India’s electronics story has moved beyond PowerPoint fiction. Phones are assembled here at enormous scale, exports have grown, supplier activity has expanded and global companies now treat India as a serious production base. People who insist nothing has changed are refusing evidence because it complicates a preferred political story.
But celebration creates its own risk. If policymakers count every finished handset as proof of technological sovereignty, “Make in India” can become a label applied at the last stage of a largely imported chain. Assembly matters; it creates discipline, logistics, jobs and the possibility of deeper capability. It is the beginning, not the destination.
The achievements are measurable
MeitY’s March 2026 monthly achievements report records cumulative production, investment and direct employment under electronics incentive schemes, along with approved semiconductor fabrication, packaging and design projects. These are government figures and should be audited against outcomes, but they demonstrate that policy has moved capital.
Production-linked incentives corrected a genuine disadvantage. India entered electronics manufacturing after East Asian ecosystems had spent decades building supplier density, infrastructure and skills. Asking a new plant to compete immediately with that accumulated advantage while paying Indian logistics and compliance costs was not ideological purity; it was a recipe for continued imports.
The Modi government deserves credit for combining incentives with infrastructure, customs policy and persistent engagement with manufacturers. Opposition criticism frequently treats any corporate incentive as a giveaway while demanding jobs in the next sentence. Industrialisation requires bargaining with firms. The relevant question is whether the public receives capability and employment in return.
That bargain must become stricter as the ecosystem matures. Incentives should decline as firms achieve scale, and future support should reward domestic value addition, exports, research, local suppliers and workforce development—not merely units shipped.
Components determine who captures value
A smartphone contains displays, memory, processors, camera modules, radio components, batteries, mechanical parts, software and intellectual property. Final assembly captures only part of the value. India’s next challenge is to make more of those inputs competitively and to develop the machinery, materials and process knowledge behind them.
This cannot be solved by ordering companies to source locally before capable suppliers exist. Forced localisation can raise prices, reduce quality and encourage creative relabelling. Policy should identify component categories where Indian production can reach global scale, then support clusters, testing facilities, power reliability, logistics and technical training.
Semiconductor packaging and testing are sensible footholds. A leading-edge fabrication plant is prestigious but brutally expensive and technologically demanding. Packaging, compound semiconductors, power electronics and design services can build expertise relevant to automobiles, telecom, energy and defence. India should pursue ambition without mistaking the most expensive project for the most valuable one.
The government’s Mobile Phone Manufacturing Scheme page signals a new emphasis on domestic manufacturing and Indian brands. I welcome that emphasis, provided support does not become protection from competition.
Why Chinese brands still dominate
Chinese smartphone companies remain powerful in India because they understand the market with unnerving precision. They offer large batteries, fast charging, bright displays, aggressive retail margins and rapid product cycles at prices Indian households can finance. Their distribution reaches towns where premium global branding has limited force.
National sentiment does not erase these advantages. An Indian logo on a mediocre phone will not produce durable loyalty. Consumers compare cameras, service, resale, design and monthly instalments. Domestic brands once held a substantial position and lost it because global competitors out-executed them.
A revival therefore needs more than subsidised assembly. Indian firms require product management, industrial design, software support, supply-chain leverage and marketing budgets. They also need patience: building trust after inconsistent products takes years. The state can reduce early disadvantages, but it cannot manufacture affection.
Chinese brands also benefited from a dense home ecosystem that allowed rapid experimentation. Indian brands purchasing standard reference designs will struggle to differentiate. Public policy should help them develop engineering and intellectual property, not reward a local badge on interchangeable hardware.
Jobs need to become careers
Factory employment is valuable, especially for young workers and women entering formal work. Yet assembly jobs can be repetitive, vulnerable to automation and sensitive to global demand. The policy goal should be a ladder from operator to technician, supervisor, process engineer and supplier entrepreneur.
That requires partnerships between companies, industrial-training institutes and state governments. Curricula must follow actual production processes rather than obsolete laboratory exercises. Workers should receive portable certification, safety protections and pathways to higher skill. Otherwise India may create large factories without creating a durable technical class.
States matter enormously. Land, power, hostels, transport, policing and local approvals shape whether a plant functions. Competition among states can improve execution, but indiscriminate subsidy auctions merely transfer public money to projects that might have arrived anyway. Agreements should publish obligations and clawback conditions.
I also want better gender data. Electronics assembly can employ many women, but recruitment numbers tell us little about retention, night-shift safety, transport, childcare and promotion. A factory that hires women for dexterity and low wages without advancing them into technical roles is not the full empowerment story advertised at inaugurations.
Measure depth, not ceremony
India needs a public manufacturing dashboard. For each scheme, disclose approved and realised investment, production, exports, domestic value addition, direct employment, average wages and incentives paid. Separate assembly value from locally produced components. Report project delays without pretending every approval is operational.
Transparency would strengthen rather than weaken the policy. It would identify successful clusters, expose laggards and answer critics who assume every rupee vanished into corporate balance sheets. It would also prevent ministers from treating commitments as completed achievements.
Trade policy must remain predictable. Sudden duty changes can help one input producer while damaging an exporter dependent on imported parts. Consultation is not capitulation to industry; it is basic competence in a chain where one component delay can stop a line.
I am optimistic because India now possesses something it lacked fifteen years ago: scale that justifies suppliers’ attention. The domestic market is vast, exports are credible, infrastructure is improving and geopolitical diversification favours an additional manufacturing base. These advantages are real, but they are not self-executing.
“Made in India” should eventually tell us where the component was designed, who owns the process knowledge, how many suppliers are local and whether the product competes globally. Counting boxes leaving an assembly line was a necessary first measure. It cannot remain the final one. The government has built a platform; the next phase must ensure India captures more of the intelligence and value inside every device.
