India pushes PLI 2.0

India’s electronics industry is pushing New Delhi for a second round of production-linked incentives after the current mobile-phone scheme ended on March 31, 2026. (timesofindia.indiatimes.com) Industry executives told the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology that India could reach 30% to 35% of global mobile production by fiscal year 2031. They put annual output at $110 billion to $130 billion and exports at $55 billion to $70 billion. (timesofindia.indiatimes.com) India now accounts for about 15% of global mobile-phone production, with output above $64 billion, according to the industry’s presentation. Commerce ministry data cited by The Times of India showed smartphone exports rose 47.4% from $20.44 billion in 2024 to $30.13 billion in 2025. (timesofindia.indiatimes.com) The first Production Linked Incentive scheme paid companies for increasing sales above a base year, and it was launched in 2020 to pull more phone assembly into India. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s February 1, 2026 budget did not announce a renewal, even as the programme moved toward its March 31 sunset. (cnbctv18.com) The government has been shifting attention from finished phones to the parts inside them. Budget 2026 raised support for the Electronics Component Manufacturing Scheme to ₹40,000 crore in fiscal year 2027 from an initial outlay of about ₹22,919 crore, while allocations for the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s mobile and information-technology hardware incentives fell to ₹1,527 crore from ₹9,000 crore. (cnbctv18.com) That shift comes after a decade of fast growth in output and exports. A Press Information Bureau release on October 11, 2025 said India’s electronics production reached ₹11.3 lakh crore in 2024-25, up from ₹1.9 lakh crore in 2014-15, while mobile-phone exports rose to ₹2 lakh crore from ₹1,500 crore over the same period. (pib.gov.in) The government has also told Parliament that the mobile-focused incentive scheme attracted ₹12,390 crore of cumulative investment, generated ₹8,44,752 crore of production and ₹4,65,809 crore of exports, and created 1,30,330 direct jobs through June 2025. The same reply said imports met 75% of India’s mobile-phone demand in 2014-15 and just 0.02% in 2024-25. (business-standard.com) Industry groups say another incentive round is needed because the next jump depends on exports, not just Indian buyers. The Times of India reported officials are weighing how much domestic value addition to require and how to expand exports without breaching World Trade Organization rules. (timesofindia.indiatimes.com) Critics say the first scheme produced uneven results. A July 23, 2025 analysis in The India Forum said foreign firms outperformed domestic participants on investment and sales, and that four-fifths of domestic Production Linked Incentive firms did not meet thresholds. (theindiaforum.in) For now, the industry is asking for continuity while New Delhi decides whether the next phase should keep backing phone assembly, move deeper into components, or try to do both. (timesofindia.indiatimes.com)