Over 150 handset manufacturing units set up in India in 4 years: Report

With the government's "Make in India" push, the country witnessed the setting up of over 150 mobile handset manufacturing units in the past four years, according to a new report from CyberMedia Research (CMR). At the end of Q4 2018, CKD (completely knocked down) manufacturing stood at 57 per cent while SKD (semi knocked down) manufacturing stood at around 39 per cent, according to CMR's India Mobile Handset Market Review Report for 2018.

The share of CBUs (completely built units) was four per cent, the findings showed. Wit the intent to foster electronics manufacturing in India, the government introduced the Phased Manufacturing Program (PMP). By subjecting imports of electronic components to duties, the intent for PMP was to boost local manufacturing using local components.

"As a result of Government's proactive policy push of using import duties to catalyse investments into mobile phone manufacturing, we are seeing a clear uptick in domestic mobile handset manufacturing," Prabhu Ram, Head-Industry Intelligence Group, CMR, said in a statement. "While thus far, the SMT manufacturing has focused on smartphone production, we anticipate a similar uptake in feature phone segment too. The featurephone segment, over the short-term, will see new players, beyond Samsung, taking-up SMT manufacturing," he added.

The top five original design manufacturers (ODMs) in Q4 2018 included Flextronics, Samsung, Rising Stars Mobile, Hipad Technology and Vivo, said the report.