E-boost for Make in India: Global electronic companies line up Rs 90,000 cr for India plants

The government has received Rs 90,000 crore investment proposals in the last two months for electronics manufacturing in India, with both local and foreign firms showing significant interest in making mobile phones. “About Rs 90,000 crore worth of proposals were received in the last two months. There is hardly any company, which has not shown interest to manufacture in India,” said Ajay Kumar, additional secretary in the communications ministry. India is already the fastest-growing smartphone market and is now becoming the manufacturing hotspot for mobile phones, he added. [caption id=“attachment_2404652” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Among companies that have evinced interest in making in India is Samsung. Reuters[/caption] About Rs 1.10 lakh-crore worth of proposals have been received in the last 1 year from various companies for electronics manufacturing under the modified special incentive package scheme. Of this, over 80% have materialised in the last two months. “There is significant interest in mobile phones. Now we are seeing a lot of players are coming in, both Indian companies and foreign ones. They are increasing their presence here,” Kumar said. Global companies, including Airbus, Phillips, Thomson, Samsung, LG and Flextronics, have shown interest to make in India. According to CyberMedia Research, 24.8% of smartphones sold in the country during the April-June quarter were made locally, up 19.9% from the preceding quarter. In the past few weeks, Xiaomi and Motorola, along with Lenovo, have commenced assembling smartphones in the country through contract manufacturing by Foxconn and Flextronics, respectively. PTI