India is slowly converting into a major manufacturing hub for mobile phones companies. Foreign handset vendors such as Nokia, Samsung, and LG have been manufacturing mobile phones in India for many years.
On the other hand, the brands at the top end of the growing tail of domestic handset brands in Indian markets, such as Micromax, Karbonn, and others have been dependent on white labelling Chinese or Taiwanese manufactured mobile products with their brands since their inception.
However they’ve now started either assembling or manufacturing products in India. The primary reason for this shift is the increase in input cost manufacturing in China; forcing handset manufacturers to rethink their strategy and looking for new manufacturing bases as well as to satisfy growing handset demand in India.
Our Market Monitor service estimates, 226 million handsets and of which 54 million smartphones were shipped in India in 2013. India is the world’s second largest handset and the third largest smartphone market in terms of volumes globally.