Sunday, 25 Jan, 2026
Photo courtesy: Pixabay
iPhone exports crossed $22 bn in 2025, making up about three-quarters of smartphone shipments abroad. The rise reflects deep integration into Apple’s supply chain rather than a broad-based manufacturing revival
The smartphone export boom has entered a new phase—one defined not just by growth, but by scale and concentration. In the 12 months to December 2025, overseas shipments of mobile phones are estimated to have reached $30 billion, the highest annual figure India has ever recorded. That single year now accounts for more than a third of all smartphone exports generated since 2021, highlighting how sharply the sector has accelerated in a very short span.
Put in context, smartphone exports over the past five years total just under $80 billion. What stands out is how heavily weighted this growth has become towards the most recent year. The jump from $20.5 billion in 2024 to around $30 billion in 2025 represents an expansion of nearly 50 per cent—an extraordinary pace for a sector that is already large and globally competitive. Few manufacturing industries of this size see such rapid scaling without running into capacity or logistics bottlenecks.
At the heart of this surge is Apple. Exports of iPhones from India crossed $22 billion in 2025, accounting for roughly three-quarters of the country’s total smartphone shipments abroad. India’s emergence as a major phone-exporting nation is therefore less about a broad-based manufacturing renaissance and more about deep integration into one global supply chain. Apple’s decision to steadily move assembly of newer iPhone models to India has reshaped the country’s export profile more decisively than any other single corporate strategy.
Policy has played a central enabling role. The production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for smartphones, rolled out in 2020, has proved to be the most effective of India’s 14 PLI programmes—at least when measured by export outcomes. By linking incentives directly to production and sales rather than capital investment, the scheme lowered execution risk for manufacturers. Its timing also mattered. Coming just as the pandemic disrupted China-centric supply chains, the PLI offered global firms a ready-made alternative when diversification became a boardroom priority rather than a long-term plan.
The transformation looks dramatic when viewed over a longer horizon. In 2015, mobile phones ranked 167th among India’s export products, barely visible in the overall trade basket. The shift began gradually in 2021, when smartphone exports touched about $4.9 billion, driven largely by Samsung and a few domestic manufacturers. That early base helped India build credibility as an assembly hub before Apple significantly ramped up its presence.
Momentum picked up sharply in 2022 as pandemic-related disruptions eased and two of Apple’s three Indian manufacturing facilities became operational. Exports nearly doubled to $9.4 billion. The following year saw another leap, with shipments rising over 50 per cent to around $14 billion. Each step reflected not just higher volumes, but increasing confidence among suppliers, logistics providers and state governments supporting the ecosystem.
Yet the concentration also exposes vulnerabilities. With Apple accounting for such a dominant share, India’s smartphone export story remains closely tied to the strategic choices of a single multinational. Domestic value addition, while improving, is still limited. Most exports are final assembly rather than full-scale manufacturing of components, which means the bulk of value continues to accrue elsewhere in the supply chain.
The challenge now is to turn speed into depth. Scaling exports was the first hurdle; building capabilities in components, tooling, design and skilled manufacturing is the harder one. If India can broaden its base beyond one brand and move up the value chain, smartphones could become a durable pillar of exports rather than a spectacular—but narrow—success.
