"India confirmed to provide subsidies to 27 technology hardware manufacturers to promote the development of the country's electronics manufacturing industry," according to Hong Kong's "South China Morning Post" report on the 20th. According to an official statement released by the Indian government on the 18th, 27 companies, including Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Hon Hai, have been approved for the Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) program for IT hardware. 23 of them are ready to start production immediately, and 4 companies will start production within 90 days.
Ashwini Vishnu, Minister of Electronics and Information Technology of India, said that the 27 applications that have been approved will bring in investments of nearly 30 billion rupees (about 360 million U.S. dollars). The Indian government expects that this move will also create about 50,000 direct jobs, indirect job opportunities are expected to reach 150,000, and India's information technology hardware output value will reach 42 billion US dollars.
According to the US CNBC website, the plan has a budget of 170 billion Indian rupees (approximately US$2 billion) for a period of 6 years and covers laptops, tablets, micro PCs and servers. The PLI scheme is scheduled to be launched as early as 2020. The Indian government stated that this plan is key to making India a "global electronics manufacturing center", with the goal of achieving a total output value of US$300 billion by 2026. The plan currently covers 14 major manufacturing sectors in India.
"At present, the plan still has many shortcomings." The Indian news website "TheWire" reported that the PLI plan initially had high hopes. However, as of March 2023, only 29 billion rupees (approximately US$340 million) have been paid. Indian government officials said they would review the program to identify shortcomings. The PLI plan is lower than expected, but it is worth noting that India has attracted Apple to assemble mobile phones in India. But the controversy surrounding the quality of iPhones made in India has never stopped. "Apple mobile phones produced in India have quality problems, and about 50% of the iPhone casings produced are facing rejection." India's "First Post" reported in February that there were quality problems with Apple mobile phones produced in India. About 50% of the mobile phone casings produced by India's Tata Company failed Apple's quality control testing.
In addition, the number of companies willing to set up production in India is still limited. In May this year, the Indian government announced that it would increase the subsidy scale to US$2 billion. Due to poor results, the Indian government had to extend the application deadline to August 30.
Objectively speaking, thanks to relevant plans, India's mobile phone exports and electronics manufacturing industry still show a certain upward trend. India's "Economic Times" reported that from April to August this year, India's mobile phone exports almost doubled, reaching 5.5 billion US dollars. The total output value of India's electronics manufacturing industry exceeds US$150 billion.