I have spent years listening to two equally unhelpful descriptions of Indian electronics manufacturing. The government’s loudest supporters speak as though every phone leaving a Noida or Tamil Nadu factory is wholly Indian from circuit design to camera sensor. Its critics dismiss the same factory as “mere assembly,” as if employing workers, building production discipline and exporting finished devices count for nothing. Both positions avoid the interesting question. India has genuinely transformed handset production and created a base from which deeper manufacturing can grow. Now policy must move from counting boxes to measuring domestic value: components, materials, tooling, intellectual property, engineering and local supplier capability. Assembly is not fake manufacturing. It is simply not the last stage.
The scale change is real
A 2026 electronics-manufacturing statement reports large increases in production, exports and employment since the PLI programme began. These are government figures and should be tested against trade data, audited company claims and subsidy payouts. Still, the direction is visible beyond official releases. India supplies nearly all of its domestic handset demand from local factories and has become an important export base for global brands. Production lines, logistics networks and a trained workforce do not materialise from a slogan. The Centre deserves credit for sustained incentives, tariff choices and negotiations that made India difficult for global manufacturers to ignore.
Critics often say the policy mainly benefits Apple’s contractors and large international firms. That is partly true because global supply chains are led by large firms. If the objective is scale, exports and industrial learning, excluding them would be self-defeating. Countries do not develop electronics ecosystems by waiting for a perfectly indigenous champion to invent every layer simultaneously. They attract anchor manufacturers, then build suppliers and skills around them. The relevant criticism is not that foreign companies participate. It is whether incentives create capabilities that remain useful when a product cycle, subsidy or geopolitical mood changes.
Jobs matter too. Electronics assembly can provide formal work to large numbers of women, especially in manufacturing clusters. But job counts should include wages, retention, transport, housing and progression. A line operator must have routes into supervision, quality engineering and technical roles. Otherwise India will remain competitive through labour cost while design and margin stay elsewhere. Industrial policy should fund training tied to advancement rather than celebrate headcount alone.
Domestic value is the next honest metric
A newer government components-manufacturing factsheet outlines support for parts and materials, alongside projects intended to deepen the supply chain. That is the correct next move. A smartphone contains displays, camera modules, printed circuit boards, batteries, enclosures, connectors, semiconductors and specialised chemicals sourced through intricate networks. India need not make every screw domestically, nor should self-reliance become autarky. It should, however, develop competitive capability in layers where its market scale, engineering base and manufacturing clusters offer an advantage.
The government should publish model-independent domestic-value estimates using a consistent method. “Made in India” currently covers products with very different local content. Consumers cannot tell the difference, and policy debates become semantic. I would report value addition by product category, component class and year, with ranges where commercial confidentiality applies. Incentives should rise for verified local sourcing, Indian design ownership and export competitiveness rather than simple final assembly.
Tooling is an overlooked constraint. Moulds, precision equipment, testing systems and manufacturing software determine how quickly suppliers can modify products and meet quality standards. If these capabilities remain imported, domestic factories depend on foreign lead times even when the final line stands in India. Policies should support specialist small and medium firms, shared testing facilities and patient credit for machinery. These businesses will not produce glamorous launch events, but they are the connective tissue of an ecosystem.
Why Chinese brands still dominate important segments
It is fashionable to assume that “Make in India” should automatically displace Chinese smartphone brands. That confuses manufacturing geography with brand competition. Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo, Realme and others built Indian distribution, service networks, retail relationships and product portfolios tuned to price-sensitive buyers. Many of their devices are assembled locally. They remain strong because they understand channel incentives and refresh products relentlessly, not because Indian consumers failed a patriotism test.
Chinese supply-chain depth also gives brands speed. They can access displays, batteries, cameras and reference designs through dense industrial networks developed over decades. An Indian brand ordering smaller volumes faces higher costs and less favourable terms. Tariffs alone cannot erase that disadvantage; they may simply raise consumer prices or encourage superficial localisation. Indian brands need design talent, working capital, software support and credible after-sales service. A tricolour on the box cannot compensate for delayed updates or unavailable spare parts.
I want policy to support Indian firms, but not through permanent protection from competition. Incentives should reward research, patents, export sales and multi-year software commitments. Government procurement can provide scale if quality standards remain strict. Public money should not sustain mediocre products nobody voluntarily buys. The goal is to create firms capable of competing with Chinese brands in India and elsewhere, not sheltered brands that survive only inside tenders.
Semiconductors matter, but humility matters more
India’s semiconductor push is strategically sensible because chips underpin electronics, vehicles, telecom and defence. Yet a fab announcement is not a chip. Projects require stable power, water, specialised suppliers, experienced engineers and years of process learning. Packaging, testing, compound semiconductors and chip design may yield capability sooner than chasing every leading-edge node. The government should communicate milestones honestly: construction, equipment installation, qualification, commercial yield and customer shipments. Ceremony should not run ahead of manufacturing reality.
We also need trade integration. Electronics supply chains cross borders repeatedly, and imported components are not evidence of failure if Indian factories add significant value and export competitively. Sudden tariff changes can disrupt planning and make India less reliable. A coherent strategy combines selective incentives, efficient customs, logistics, trade agreements and infrastructure. “Self-reliance” should mean resilience and capability, not the fantasy that a modern phone can be economically produced inside a national fence.
Environmental responsibility belongs in this strategy. More production means more chemical use, water demand, packaging and eventual electronic waste. Incentives should require credible recycling, worker safety and disclosure of environmental performance. India should not repeat the industrial model in which pollution is treated as an external cost borne by communities near factories. Green manufacturing can become an export advantage as global buyers tighten supply-chain standards.
My assessment is optimistic because the baseline has changed. India is no longer merely discussing whether it can become an electronics manufacturing hub; it is shipping at scale. The Modi government’s PLI strategy helped make that happen and deserves acknowledgment from critics who predicted only failure. But successful policy creates a duty to raise the standard of proof. The next press release should tell us not only how many phones were produced, but how much engineering, component value and intellectual property were created here. Chinese brands will remain formidable, global firms will remain essential and imports will remain part of production. The serious goal is not to purify the supply chain. It is to ensure that each product generation leaves India with more capability than the last.
