India selects Apple partners, Samsung for smartphone manufacturing incentives

India has introduced a federal plan to boost domestic smartphone production over the next five years. Under this plan, Samsung and three of Apple’s contract manufacturing partners are among 16 firms to win USD 6.65 billion in incentives, TechCrunch reports, citing a statement from the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). These companies applied for the incentive programme in August this year. 

The selected companies will produce smartphones and other electronics components worth more than USD 143 billion over the next five years. In return, India will offer them an incentive of 4 percent to 6 percent on additional sales of goods produced locally over the 5-year period, with 2019-2020 set as the base year.

According to MeitY, around 60 percent of the locally produced products will be exported. The companies are expected to generate more than 200,000 direct employment opportunities in the next five years and 600,000 indirect employment opportunities during the same period, the ministry said.

“Apple and Samsung together account for nearly 60 percent of global sales revenue of mobile phones and this scheme is expected to increase their manufacturing base manifold in the country,” the MeitY said. 

Indian manufacturers Lava, Bhagwati (Micromax), Padget Electronics, UTL Neolyncs and Optiemus Electronics have also received the approval. Missing from the list are Chinese smartphone makers Oppo, Vivo, OnePlus and Realme that had not applied for the programme.