India's new incentive scheme for mobile phone manufacturing, referred to as PLI 2.0, is set to favour companies that combine manufacturing scale, export capabilities and strong domestic supply chains, brokerage Motilal Oswal said in a note published by the Economic Times.

Motilal Oswal identified Dixon Technologies as well positioned to benefit from the revamped programme. The brokerage added that higher incentives for incremental sales and for domestic sourcing could boost production volumes across the industry and support greater backward integration — the strengthening of India-based component and input supply chains — throughout the sector.

Background

The Production Linked Incentive (PLI) framework pays manufacturers a share of incremental sales of goods produced in India, with the aim of shifting electronics assembly and component production into the country. India's first PLI scheme for large-scale electronics manufacturing, which covered mobile phones and specified hardware components, was rolled out in 2020 over a five-year window with incentives of 4% to 6% on qualifying incremental sales. It is widely credited with expanding smartphone production and exports from India, and the same model has since been extended to more than a dozen other sectors, including pharmaceuticals, automobiles and telecom equipment, making electronics the template for a broader national manufacturing push.

Government data show India's mobile phone exports have risen sharply in recent years, crossing roughly $15 billion in 2023-24, with Apple's India-based suppliers accounting for a large share of shipments. Much of the output, however, remains assembly-led, as a significant proportion of components is still imported — the reason successive policy versions have emphasised deeper local sourcing and a domestic component ecosystem.

Dixon Technologies (India) Ltd, headquartered in Noida, is one of India's largest homegrown electronics manufacturing services providers. The company assembles smartphones, televisions, lighting products and home appliances for leading brands, and has been a prominent participant in India's electronics manufacturing push under the PLI programme.

According to Motilal Oswal's assessment, the redesigned scheme is structured to direct rewards toward larger players — those able to meet higher production and export thresholds and to source a greater share of their inputs domestically. The brokerage's note comes as the original five-year window for the electronics PLI approaches its end, with the successor scheme's emphasis on scale, exports and local value addition shaping expectations across the sector.

Source: Economic Times Markets