Blitz India Business
NEW DELHI: India’s mobile phone exports have risen more than a hundredfold in a decade. Inside that number, one product family carries more than three-quarters of the value — which is both the achievement and the exposure.
Mobile phone exports from India reached about ₹2.59 lakh crore in FY 2025-26, against roughly ₹1,500 crore in FY 2014-15 — a rise of well over 160 times. Domestic production grew more than thirty-fold over the same period, from about ₹18,000 crore to ₹6.27 lakh crore. Electronics exports overall rose about eleven-fold, from close to ₹38,000 crore to ₹4.24 lakh crore. On any reasonable measure these are among the fastest sectoral transformations in India’s industrial record, and the production-linked incentive scheme is the principal reason for them.
The composition qualifies the achievement without diminishing it. iPhones alone account for more than 75 per cent of India’s smartphone export value. That means a single customer’s sourcing strategy substantially determines a ₹2.59 lakh crore export line — and the FY26 record was set in the final year of the smartphone PLI scheme. Concentration of this kind is normal at the assembly stage of an electronics build-out; every successful electronics economy, including Vietnam and China at comparable points, began with one anchor customer. The question is never whether the anchor arrives. It is what gets built around it before the incentive ends.
165 times in a decade: mobile phone exports rose from about ₹1,500 crore in FY15 to roughly ₹2.59 lakh crore in FY26, with domestic production reaching ₹6.27 lakh crore.
Assembly is how an electronics industry starts. Components are how it survives losing a customer.
At a Glance
• Mobile phone exports, FY26: about ₹2.59 lakh crore
• FY15 base: about ₹1,500 crore — a rise of well over 160 times
• Domestic mobile production, FY26: ₹6.27 lakh crore, from about ₹18,000 crore in FY15 — more than thirty-fold
• Electronics exports: ₹4.24 lakh crore, from close to ₹38,000 crore — about eleven-fold
• Concentration: iPhones account for over 75 per cent of smartphone export value
• Policy driver: the production-linked incentive scheme; FY26 was the smartphone PLI’s final year
• Next phase: Semicon 2.0, approved by the Union Cabinet
• US tariff position: India’s reciprocal rate 18 per cent, against 20 for Vietnam and Bangladesh
This is precisely the transition Semicon 2.0 is meant to address, and the sequencing is right. Assembly creates the workforce, the logistics competence and the supplier relationships; components and packaging capture the margin; fabrication anchors the whole structure so it cannot be relocated in a single procurement cycle. India is moving through those stages in order, and faster than most economies have managed. The measure of success over the next five years is not the export headline — it is domestic value addition per handset, which is where a concentrated assembly base turns into a diversified industry.
Two supports are working in the sector’s favour right now and both should be used rather than assumed. India’s reciprocal tariff into the United States is 18 per cent against 20 for Vietnam and Bangladesh, which is a live sourcing advantage in consumer electronics as much as in apparel. And the domestic market is large enough that a component maker can reach scale on Indian demand before exporting — an option Vietnam never had. The constructive agenda is therefore specific: component and sub-assembly depth, design capability that keeps intellectual property onshore, and enough customer diversity that the next PLI cycle is measured by how many anchors India has, not by how large one of them became.