Mobile phone manufacturing in India to reach 500 million units in 2 years, says DoT official

Mobile phone manufacturing in the country may reach 500 million units in coming two years on the back of good base of talent and an incentive policy, a top Department of Telecom (DoT) official said Sunday. This year, India produced 100 million phones as compared to 45 million last year. “The number of phones being manufactured was 10 million sometime back (which increased) to 45 million last year and 100 million this year. The time has come when we will reach 500 million, may be in 2 years,” Telecom Secretary J S Deepak said in New Delhi. He was speaking on the second day of a seminar on Telecom and Broadcasting theme - ART (Adjudication, Regulation, Telecommunication) of Convergence, TDSAT. He added that apart from phones, the differential tariff is helping domestic manufacturers to get into other areas like medical electronics, consumer electronics as well as broadband equipment, set up boxes. “Today with base of talent and incentive policy, India is becoming a global hub for manufacturing of phones and specially low-end phones,” he added. The government is making efforts to reduce imports of electronic products and meet requirement of domestic market through indigenous production. The government has received proposals worth Rs. 1.13 lakh crore in the electronics manufacturing segment from major brands under the modified special incentive package scheme (M-SIPS). M-SIPS has been extended till July 2020, which was earlier valid till July 2017. The scheme offers capital subsidies to large investments in electronics manufacturing and system design. The Secretary also said that making high-speed broadband available to individuals in rural areas is a priority of the government. According to a survey, he said, while Internet users may have touched 400 million, broadband users are in the range of 40-50 million and growing very slowly in rural areas. “May be 7 percent people in rural areas use Internet. More importantly, it’s the issue of digital divide. We have only 14 percent rural households which are digitally literate…this needs to change,” he said. PTI