India is one of the world's fastest-growing telecom markets, and the country holds immense opportunities for telecom equipment products, according to Research & Markets. The country houses a vast wireless subscriber base which is served by a number of wireless network operators and other service providers.
In addition, India is a major IT and ITES hub, with the result that there are a significant number of companies dependent on telecom products. This has resulted in a considerable level of demand for telecom equipment in the country.
India is largely dependent on imports for telecom equipment – in comparison to the number of imports, domestic production is negligible. Leveraging on this deficiency are Chinese and European companies, which are catering to the needs of the country with wide range of telecom equipment products at competitive price points.
However, this may be set to change as the Indian government has realised that it will be essential to produce telecom equipment domestically, and accordingly has create a number of policies which will incentivise this. In addition to allowing 100% FDI for telecom equipment manufacturing, the government is also setting up telecom centres of excellence across India to promote domestic manufacturing.
In 2012, the Union Cabinet approved INR 100bn as financial support for the development of electronic manufacturing clusters, while recently an additional INR 100bn was approved to promote large scale manufacturing in India.
Now is therefore a prime opportunity for mobile accessory companies to establish manufacturing units in India. India’s export market is growing, principally in the export of mobile handsets. Growth is being spurred by a constantly increasing mobile subscriber base, which in turn is fuelled by the introduction of 3G and 4G services.
