According to media reports, India has produced 2 billion mobile phones in the past 9 years, and its annual output has reached about 300 million units. It is second only to China and has become the second largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world. Apple is also stepping up efforts to support India. Made in India, is it really going to replace Made in China?
Before 2014, there was a mobile phone manufacturing boom in India. However, with India’s own efforts, only about 20% of the mobile phones sold in the Indian market were manufactured in India, which is far from India’s desire to develop the manufacturing industry. Until Chinese mobile phones enter the Indian market.
After Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office, he proposed a plan to make in India, and then took measures in terms of tariffs, imposing heavy taxes on imported mobile phones, prompting mobile phone companies to assemble them locally in India, and Chinese mobile phones entered the Indian market vigorously in those years. This provides strong support for making mobile phones in India.
In 2017, a Chinese mobile phone company cooperated with Foxconn to set up a factory in India. It also aggressively advertised that its mobile phones were made in India. Indian consumers believed it and bought the mobile phones of this Chinese mobile phone brand one after another, sending them to India’s largest mobile phone brand. status.
The success of this Chinese mobile phone company has stimulated other Chinese mobile phone companies to follow up. Subsequently, many Chinese mobile phone companies have set up factories in India. Among them, Gionee even stated that the mobile phones produced by the factories set up in India will not only be sold in the Indian market, It will also be sold to the Middle East and African markets, providing strong support for mobile phones made in India.
As the strength of mobile phone manufacturing in India rises, in 2019 Apple pushed Foxconn to set up a large-scale factory in India to produce iPhones. In 2020, Wistron sold its mobile phone factory in China and invested fully in setting up a factory in India, which further consolidated the strength of mobile phone manufacturing in India. .
2022 can be said to be the peak of India's mobile phone production capacity, which has pushed India's mobile phone production capacity to 300 million units. Indian-made mobile phones are not only sold in India, but also began to be sold to markets outside India. Previously, domestic consumers bought When it comes to the iPhone produced in India, this has surprised domestic consumers, after all, 90% of iPhones are made in China.
Just when Indian manufacturing was booming, India began to be a monster. First, it issued huge fines to Chinese mobile phone companies on the grounds of tax issues. The Indian consortium also began to reach out. Wistron’s factory with 10,000 people was forcibly acquired by the Indian consortium after two years of development in India. This directly led to a severe setback for Indian manufacturing. The data for the first half of this year showed that the production of mobile phones made in India has declined. 20%.
However, the analysis pointed out that India’s manufacturing is still quite weak. Nearly 80% of the mobile phone accessories it produces are imported from China. It can be said that India has only done the simplest step of mobile phone assembly. In view of this, India is trying to promote the mobile phone industry. Apple is also quite cooperative with the development of the mobile phone industry chain. At the end of 2022, Apple applied for factory construction permits for 14 Chinese mobile phone industry chain companies in India, and obtained approval from India. However, due to the experience of Chinese mobile phones in India, whether these 14 mobile phone industry chain companies It is doubtful to build a factory in India.
There is no doubt that Made in India has indeed made great progress in the past 9 years, but India's complex culture, low quality of Indian workers, and India's changeable policies, coupled with repeated fines for foreign-funded enterprises, have led to The development process of Made in India has been bumpy. It is said that more than 1,700 of the more than 5,000 foreign-funded companies registered in India have been canceled since last year. The dream of Made in India may come to an abrupt end.