The government has removed import rights over some important components for cell phone production, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced in the annual budget on Saturday, on a boost for local production efforts and benefiting companies like Apple and Xiaomi.
India electronic production has more than doubled in the last six years to $ 115 billion (approximately RS. 99.41.100 crore) by 2024, with the country now becoming the second largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world.
Apple led the India smartphone market with a 23% share in total revenue for 2024, followed by Samsung at 22%, according to Counterpoint research company.
The list included components for mounting mobile phones, such as printed circuit plate assembly, parts of the camera modules and USB cables, which were taxed by 2.5% before.
Cuts will help India better deal with a potentially disturbing year of global trade due to US President Donald Trump’s tariff threats.
As Trump expects its “America First” policies to attract more manufacturing units back to the US, India is seeking to take advantage of US-China commercial tensions to increase its own portion of global supply chains.
Internally, India’s IT ministry has warned that it risks losing to China and Vietnam in the smartphone export race if it wasn’t less rates to attract global companies, Reuters said last year.
Sitharaman, in his budget last year, had announced a revision of the country’s customs duty rate structure to rationalize and simplify tariffs to facilitate trade.
Revision of duty also aimed to remove so-called inverted service structures or instances in which tariffs on raw materials or intermediate goods are higher than the end products that are used to produce.
The complicated tariff structure of India is often cited as an impediment to efficient local production and a cause of disputes.
“The 2025 Union Budget brings good news to the industry, including the consumer electronics manufacturing sector. New reductions in the BCD for important components mean that the location of parts such as batteries and exhibitions will increase,” said the director of counterpoint research Tarun Pathak to Gadgets 360.
“The Basic Customs Tax Government (BCD) review will reinforce domestic manufacturing, approaching the ambitious $ 500 billion of the first -Narendra Modi (about RS.43.32.500 Crore) electronic manufacturing goal. 10 %to 20 %, combined with the reduction in open cells and other LCD/LED components to 5 %, is a future vision political movement that will give a significant boost to domestic manufacturing champions such as Dixon, “said Pabhu Ram, VP – Industry Research Group (IRG), Cybermedia Research.
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