The central government has taken a big step to encourage the manufacturing of Mobile phones in India. Also, this step will encourage international brands to shift their mobile phone manufacturing unit to India. Just ahead of presenting the Interim Budget 2024 on 1st Feb by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the central government announced the reduction in the import of Mobile Phone components. Here are the details about how it can reduce mobile phone costs to 1% – 2% in the upcoming days.
On 31 January 2024, the centre announced a cut of 10% from the 15% import duty on mobile phone components. Now importers in India will be able to import mobile phone components like SIM sockets, main lenses, battery covers, and mechanical things at lower duty which is now slashed to 10%. Previously, importers had to pay 15%duty which directly impacted the pocket of customers and the prices of Mobile Phones were higher. Now this reduction may reduce the prices to 1% to 2% from the previous prices.
After this import duty cut, analysts expect that it may help India to become a big manufacturer of mobile phones like other countries like Vietnam, Mexico, and some others. This initiative by the government will attract more brands and companies to shift manufacturing to India. Recently, Apple also started manufacturing in India which may reduce the cost of iPhones for Indian users.
In the year 2014 to 2015, India imported around 78% of mobile phones of the total requirements. However, after several steps and encouraging manufacturing in India, 99.2% of the mobile phones manufactured in India were sold in India. Currently, it is expected that this mobile phone industry going to hit around $50 billion worth in the financial year 2024. Also, it may hit $55 billion to $60 billion in the next financial year. The current decision by the government is likely a big step to support new startups in the mobile phone manufacturing industry.