Apple boost helps India double smartphone exports; shipments hit $11.1 bn

India doubled its exports of smartphones to $11.1 billion (about Rs 91,000 crore) in 2022-23 (FY23) over the previous year’s figure of $5.48 billion (Rs 45,000 crore), thanks largely to the Apple juggernaut, according to data from the India Cellular and Electronics Association (ICEA).

Union Minister for Communications, Electronics & IT Ashwini Vaishnaw said: “With the doubling of exports of smartphones to over Rs 90,000 crore, India is well on its way to becoming a leader in the global mobile device market.”

On the flip side, despite the government prodding Chinese companies to export more, their smartphone shipments fell steeply by 26 per cent from $214 million in FY22 to $157 million in FY23.

The Chinese companies accounted for just 1.35 per cent of the total smartphone exports in FY23, the data showed.

The Chinese exports were not only very small but in FY23 they were skewed in favour of just one company, Lenovo. Lenovo exported Motorola phones through its vendor and accounted for over 80 per cent of all Chinese exports.

The others included Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi.

When it comes to the domestic market, however, Chinese companies rule the roost, collectively controlling over 70 per cent of it, with revenues of over $20 billion annually from Indian sales.

The growing importance of mobile phones in the overall Indian exports can be gauged from the fact that merchandise exports were slated to go up from $422 billion in FY22 to $447 billion in FY23 according to Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal.

This implies mobile device exports would account for 25 per cent of the increase in merchandise exports in FY23.

Apple exported over $5 billion worth of iPhones from the country in FY23 and already accounts for 45 per cent of the overall smartphone exports, followed by Samsung.

Minister of State for IT and Electronics, Rajeev Chandrasekhar welcomed the doubling of exports.

“Propelled by the PM’s visionary PLI scheme, Apple has increased its exports 400 per cent to $5 billion in FY23 and total smartphone exports have touched a new level for the first time ever,’’ he said.

On the Chinese performance, he said he was ‘very disappointed by the lacklustre export performance’.

Chandrasekhar has met most of the Chinese mobile brands and has been pushing them to increase their exports from the country and many had publicly shown an interest in doing so.

ICEA national president Pankaj Mohindroo explained the importance of the export push: “Exports are a sacrosanct ingredient in a tiger economy.

"The mobile phone export juggernaut continues - it has now crossed Rs 90,000 crore in FY23 and overall electronics exports have also gone up by 58 per cent to Rs 1,85,000 crore.

"Industry and the government are strenuously working on replicating this in other verticals,’’ said Mahendroo.

He also said the smartphone export numbers were much higher than the ICEA’s estimates of around Rs 75,000 crore in FY23.