India's Mobile Phone Production Rises to 110 Million in 2015-16: Prasad

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India's Mobile Phone Production Rises to 110 Million in 2015-16: Prasad
Press Trust of India , 1 March 2016

Mobile phone production in the country has more than doubled to 110 million in 2015-16 on the back of duty rationalisation announced in the previous Budget, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said Tuesday.

The minister said 16 new mobile manufacturing units have been set up during the financial year.

"In 2014-15, the mobile units manufactured in the country was 5.4 crores, which has more than doubled to 11 crores in 2015-16. After the duty rationalisation in the last budget, 16 new mobile manufacturing units have been set up in this financial year," Prasad said in New Delhi during an media interaction.

While applauding the reforms announced in the Budget for 2016-17, Prasad said due to the initiatives taken up in the last budget, especially duty rationalisation, there is a remarkable acceleration in field of electronics manufacturing.

"Electronics manufacturing proposals worth Rs. 1,20,294 crores were received till date, up from Rs. 11,800 crores in June 2014, when the government came to power," he said.

Asked about what amount of proposals have been approved, the Minister said Rs. 18,000 crores worth of proposals have been approved.

The minister said the proposal of duty advantage of 8.5 percent to domestic manufacturers of routers, broadband modems and set top boxes, digital video recorder, and CCTV cameras among other products announced in the Union Budget, will give a boost to the telecom sector, which uses many of these products.

Domestic value addition in mobile phones, battery, wired headsets, speakers would enjoy a duty advantage of 10.5 percent compared to imported goods, he added.

"We're happy to note that FM has announced moving a legislation to give statuary backing to Aadhaar, for delivery of services, subsidies, benefits coming out of Consolidated Fund of India," he said.

On IT and IT enabled services, the minister said that India's share in the global IT outsourcing has increased to 56 percent, while the services export has crossed $100 billion (roughly Rs. 6,78,972 crores) in the last 20 months.

The Minister said foreign direct investment (FDI) equity inflow in telecom sector has touched a new high in FY 2014-15 at $2,895 million (roughly Rs. 19,633 crores), which is 80 percent more than the FDI equity inflow in 2012-13 at $304 million (roughly Rs. 2,061 crores).

Regarding Postal Department, the Minister said 1,000 ATMs will be installed by March 2016, of which 576 ATMs have already been installed.

"India Post has overtaken the State Bank of India to become the largest core banking network with 18,231 branches," he added.

Regarding the BharatNet project, Prasad said at the end of February, optic fibre cable (OFC) pipe has been laid in 51,616 gram panchayats while fibre has been laid in 41,086 gram panchayats.

http://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/new...rises-to-110-million-in-2015-16-prasad-808616

 

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India is new smartphone manufacturing hub, thanks to this duty
Pankaj Doval| TNN | Jun 28, 2016, 09.37 AM IST

NEW DELHI: Chinese and Korean smartphone makers are increasingly looking at sourcing from India, thanks to around 12% duty slapped last year on import. The move has prompted global contract manufacturers such as Taiwan's Foxconn and Wistron to make India a base, as smartphone sales are growing at a rapid pace.

The $20-billion Wistron seems to have made quick gains through its joint venture with Delhi-based Optiemus Infracom. The JV -Optiemus Electronics (OEL) -has emerged as the single-largest contract manufacturer forsmartphones in the country and has bagged deals from Korea's LG, China's OnePlus, Taiwan's HTC and Chinese major Oppo .

OEL was formed last year and Indian promoter Ashok Gupta holds 80% equity . The company has been expanding at a rapid pace as more and more global device companies are looking at sourcing from India.OEL's manufacturing facility on 78,000 sq meters at Noida in Uttar Pradesh has an annual capacity of 8 million units. It will employ around 4,000 people.

"We have begun production for LG, Oppo, HTC and OnePlus and 20 manufacturing lines have been installed," Ravinder Zutshi, a former senior official at Samsung India and who is now the MD of Optiemus Infracom, told TOI.

The JV is investing $200 million and has also applied for a second manufacturinglocation at Greater Noida. "This will be a mega facility on a global scale and will be spread across 25 acres. We plan to start manufacturing from next year.In the first phase, we will begin with a capacity of 15 million units, and will increase it to 25 million units over the next five years. We have plans for deeper level of manufacturing and are looking to make printed circuit boards (PCBs)," Zutshi said.

At present, there are only a handful of companies that are indigenously developing PCBs in the country , which are core to the manufacturing of mobile and electronic devices. The high-technology component largely gets imported from locations such as Taiwan and China.

Zutshi added that more tieups for contract manufacturing were in line. "We are looking at adding more brands to our production kitty and are in talks with some of the big brands."

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...-sourcing-from-India/articleshow/52950125.cms