Uttar Pradesh emerges India’s mobile manufacturing hub

With nearly 50 per cent of the country's installed manufacturing capacity for mobile phones centered in Uttar Pradesh the state has emerged the mobile manufacturing hub in the country.

The total installed mobile phone production capacity in the country stood at 20.7 million, with UP alone accounting for 10 million mobile phones, a report released by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion said.

"38 new mobile manufacturing units with over 20 million units per month capacity have been set up since September 2015. These units have generated 38,300 employment opportunities," the report said.

As per data provided in the DIPP report, Haryana with 2.5 million capacity comes as a distant second in mobile phone production capacity.

UP has 13 of the 38 mobile manufacturing units in the country, followed by Delhi with 6 mobile manufacturing units, Andhra Pradesh 4 units, Haryana and Uttarakhand 3 each, Maharashtra 2, Telangana 2 and Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Daman one each.

According to data available with the mobile industry body Indian Cellular Association, there were 39 mobile phone manufacturing units in the country as of July 2016.

Out of these, 15 units, including those of Samsung, Lava, Intex with total monthly production capacity of 13.1 million units, were in UP, according to ICA.

AP had 5 units with annual production capacity of 2 million phones, Haryana 3 with 2.5 million capacity, Uttarakhand and Delhi 4 each with 3 million and 1.1 million capacity, 2 units each in Telangana and Maharashtra with 0.8 million and 0.3 million capacity respectively, while Tamil Nadu, HP, West Bengal and Daman have one units each, ICA report said.

Mobile handset manufacturing in the country has recorded a growth of approximately 185 per cent in value and 90 per cent in volume in 2015-16 over 2014-15.

"Rs 54,000 crore worth mobile handsets were produced during this period from Rs18,900 crore in 2014-15. In the current financial year, manufacturing is estimated to grow to Rs94,000 crore, which would be an estimated 75 per cent year-on-year growth," ICA said.

According to ICA, boost to mobile manufacturing discouraged import of mobile handsets by 4 per cent in 2015-16 over 2014-15 and is further estimated to drop by over 29% in the current fiscal over 2015-16.

ICA expects mobile handset production in the country to increase to 500 million units annually with total value of around Rs1,50,000 crore to Rs3.00,000 crore by 2019 with production further increasing to 1.25 trillion handsets with an estimated value of Rs15,00,000 crore by 2025-26.