India plans smartphone export incentives to boost Apple

India is drafting a new smartphone incentive scheme that ties subsidies to exports and to greater use of locally made components to boost its role in global supply chains.

The proposal, framed as a follow-up to the current PLI program that retires March 31, would explicitly reward companies for shipping devices overseas and for deeper localization.

People familiar with the discussions said Apple, Samsung, and their suppliers, including contract manufacturers, stand to benefit because exports and local value addition would be prioritized.

Officials are weighing tiered incentives that give higher subsidies to devices with greater local content, including camera modules and display assemblies made in India.

🔗 Source: Bloomberg

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

The first incentive program turned India into a big exporter

The Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme had an approved outlay of ₹40,995 crore and expanded assembly lines 1.
By FY24, Apple suppliers made iPhones worth about $14 billion in India, about 14% of the global total, around one in seven iPhones worldwide 2.
The program’s main flaw was no domestic value-addition threshold for payouts 3.
Local value addition for iPhones sat around 15–20% by model, while the redesign would reward deeper localisation to close that gap 2.

This policy aims to speed up a self-sustaining electronics ecosystem

Subsidies linked to local content plus exports would nudge smartphone brands and contract manufacturers toward Indian sourcing.
Component spending is picking up, including Corning (a US materials company that makes specialty glass used in electronics) planning an INR 10 billion (about $120 million) facility in Tamil Nadu, while Sunny Opotech (a display and optical-components supplier) says it will invest $300 million in India 2.
Workforce pressure is rising, with Foxconn (a major electronics contract manufacturer for Apple) reportedly pulling out over 300 Chinese engineers and technical staff from southern India as it trains and grows the local Indian workforce 2.
For Apple, this lowers reliance on China and matches its reported aim to source most US-bound iPhones from India by the end of 2026 2.