Samsung, Foxconn and Pegatron among 16 companies to get government nod to boost mobile manufacturing in India

The Ministry of Electronics and IT has approved the applications of Samsung, Foxconn Hon Hai, Pegatron, Rising Star and Wistron from among the international applicants for manufacturing of mobile phones in India under the government's Production-Linked Incentive scheme.

Out of these, Foxconn Hon Hai, Wistron and Pegatron are contract manufacturers for Apple iPhones. Apple (37 per cent) and Samsung (22 per cent) together account for nearly 60 per cent of global sales revenue of mobile phones and this scheme is expected to increase their manufacturing base manifold in the country, an official statement said.

"The international mobile phone manufacturing companies that are approved under mobile phone (invoice value Rs 15,000 and above) segment are Samsung, Foxconn Hon Hai, Rising Star, Wistron and Pegatron," it said.

The domestic companies approved for mobile phone manufacturing under the scheme are Lava, Bhagwati (Micromax), Padget Electronics, UTL Neolyncs and Optiemus Electronics.

These companies are expected to expand their manufacturing operations in a significant manner.

Further, six companies approved under the Specified Electronic Components Segment are AAT&S, Ascent Circuits, Visicon, Walsin, Sahasra and Neolync.

The PLI scheme for large scale electronics manufacturing notified on April 1, 2020, extends an incentive of 4-6 per cent on incremental sales (over base year) of goods under target segments that are manufactured in India to eligible companies, for a period of five years subsequent to the base year (FY2019-20).

In total, the ministry has approved the applications of 16 companies under the scheme. As per the ministry, the companies approved under the scheme will bring additional investment in electronics manufacturing to the tune of Rs 11,000 crore.

The companies will also generate more than 2 lakh direct employment opportunities in the next five years along with creation of additional indirect employment of nearly 3 times the direct employment, the statement said.

"The PLI scheme has been a huge success in terms of the applications received from global as well as domestic mobile phone manufacturing companies and electronic components manufacturers," a tweet by the ministry quoted Union Minister for Electronics and IT, Ravi Shankar Prasad, as saying.

The industry also has hailed the approvals.

ICEA Chairman Pankaj Mohindroo said: "The approval for global companies is on expected lines. The approval for Indian companies is very fair and each company has got one approval."

He noted that now the challenge would be whether these Indian companies build core design and brand capabilities and also scale up to become globally competitive, or some of them use it tactically and fade out with the PLI incentive.

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