Despite Make-in-India push, brands still importing smartphones in large numbers

Smartphone brands are still overcoming challenges like worker shortage, COVID-19 spread, logistics disruption among others.

Moneycontrol News

August 21, 2020 / 10:19 IST

Phones (Representative image)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's clarion call for Atmanirbhar Bharat has had little impact on mobile phone makers. Smartphone brands have continued to import in large numbers in July to prepare for the upcoming festive season.

Despite a decline of 6 percent, smartphone import volume in July stood at Rs 2,085.2 crore, while import volumes for handsets touched a three-year high of Rs 2,225.2 crore in June. Mobile phone makers in India, on an average, have ramped-up production to 65-70 percent only even after the Centre relaxed lockdown restrictions, The Economic Times reported citing International Data Corporation (IDC).

Comparatively, brands had scaled production, on an average, to 40-45 percent of capacity during the nationwide lockdown period between April and June. Brands like Vivo, which claimed to have reached around 90 percent of its production capacity, are the exception, the report stated.

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"Smartphone brands are still overcoming challenges like worker shortage, COVID-19 spread, logistics disruption and partial lockdowns," said Upasana Joshi, associate research manager at IDC, India.

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