{"id":71789,"date":"2025-07-18T05:07:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T05:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/71789\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T05:07:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T05:07:13","slug":"chinas-informal-trade-restrictions-threaten-indias-32-bn-smartphone-export-target-warns-industry-body","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/71789\/","title":{"rendered":"China\u2019s informal trade restrictions threaten India\u2019s $32 bn smartphone export target, warns industry body"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Delhi: India\u2019s electronics industry has raised the alarm over informal trade restrictions by China, saying this could dent the country\u2019s competitiveness and threaten the $32 billion smartphone exports<\/a> target for this fiscal year.<\/p>\n

In a recent letter to the government, the industry said China\u2019s actions are solely aimed at crippling India\u2019s supply chains and undermining its rise as a global manufacturing hub. The curbs are triggering delays while inflating costs for manufacturers.<\/p>\n

The industry has called on the Centre to urgently address issues related to Chinese latest controls on capital equipment, other minerals, and skilled technical personnel. It emphasised that the curbs are being enforced in a planned, sequential manner without any formal notifications, and only through verbal instructions.
The letter was written by industry body India Cellular and Electronics Association (ICEA).
\"ScreenshotET Bureau\"ETLive Events\u201cWhile domestic production remains relatively insulated for now, export-linked manufacturing to the tune of $24 billion in FY25, projected to cross $32 billion in FY26 in smartphones has now come under serious risk,\u201d ICEA said in the letter.
ICEA counts companies like Apple, Google, Motorola, Foxconn, Vivo, Oppo, Lava, Dixon, Flex, and Tata Electronics among its members.
China\u2019s restrictive measures come in light of India emerging as an alternative global hub for electronics manufacturing, especially for iPhone maker Apple. Until about five years ago, Apple used to produce all its iPhones in China. However, leveraging India\u2019s production linked incentive (PLI) scheme for smartphone manufacturing, launched in 2020, the US company through its contract manufacturers Foxconn (Hon Hai) and Tata Electronics has been rapidly shifting production to India, which now accounts for about 20% of global iPhone output.
Notably, Apple has been increasingly serving the US market for iPhones from India, moving away from China, amid trade tensions between Washington and Beijing, and incentives by the Indian government. Others like Google and Motorola too have started to export India-made smartphones to the US. Korea\u2019s Samsung too has a robust smartphone manufacturing capacity in India, even though Vietnam remains its primary hub for exports.<\/p>\n

Since 2020, smartphone manufacturing in India has surged, with the country producing $64 billion worth of devices in FY25, of which $24.1 billion were exported. This compares with $26 billion worth of domestic mobile phone production in FY19.<\/p>\n

From the 167th rank in India\u2019s exports basket in FY15, smartphones have climbed to become the country\u2019s principal export.<\/p>\n

However, China\u2019s latest steps are placing India\u2019s electronics manufacturing growth engine at a significant risk, said ICEA.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf unaddressed, these disruptions could reverse recent gains and constrain India\u2019s deeper integration into global value chains (GVCs),\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

India recently announced an incentive scheme to boost local manufacturing of electronics parts. China currently makes bulk of the electronics components globally, as per industry estimates. However, ICEA said India aims to grow its components and sub-assembly manufacturing to $145\u2013155 billion by 2030.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s informal trade barriers started with curbs on capital equipment last year, wherein the neighbouring country was restricting exports of equipment across multiple sectors, including heavy-duty boring machines and solar equipment. Over the last eight months, these curbs have been extended to electronics manufacturing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese disruptions are leading to operational inefficiencies, impacting scale and above all raising costs of production, since producing this equipment locally or in collaboration with Japan or Korea costs 3-4 times higher than Chinese imports,\u201d ICEA highlighted.<\/p>\n

Further adding to the woes of the domestic industry, China\u2019s latest restrictions on exports of rare earth materials are risking input shortages for smartphone makers in India. The industry noted that alternate sources of rare earth are scarce, economically unviable or logistically inefficient.<\/p>\n

China recently asked some of its companies to shutter their Indian operations and withdraw trained Indian personnel, in an effort to restrict technology transfers.<\/p>\n

To make matters worse, Beijing recently directed workers of Chinese origin employed at Chinese, Taiwanese, or Indian companies to return home immediately, even if midway through their assignments. The number of such professionals runs into hundreds, and disrupts technology transfers, skills training, and crucially increases production costs, adversely impacting India\u2019s competitiveness, say industry executives.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is already disrupting not only technical operations but also technology transfer, scaling of production, and new product development, core to India\u2019s ambitions of becoming a global electronics hub,\u201d ICEA said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Delhi: India\u2019s electronics industry has raised the alarm over informal trade restrictions by China, saying this could…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":71790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[50190,64,50183,79,50186,50185,33497,50187,50182,50189,50184,50188,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-71789","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-apple-manufacturing-in-india","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-china-trade-restrictions","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-india-china-relations","13":"tag-india-china-ties","14":"tag-india-china-trade","15":"tag-india-china-trade-rules","16":"tag-india-electronics-industry","17":"tag-production-linked-incentive-scheme","18":"tag-smartphone-exports","19":"tag-supply-chain-impact","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114872506451184676","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}