Mobile manufacturing industry to touch Rs 1,32,000 cr by 2018 end

New Delhi: The Indian mobile manufacturing industry is expected to touch Rs 1,32,000 crores by the end of 2018, Union Minister, of Electronics and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Thursday.

"India manufactured about 110 million mobile phones in 2015-16 as compared to 60 million in 2014-15 showing a growth of over 90 per cent. In value terms, India's mobile manufacturing industry produced mobile phones worth Rs 54,000 crore in FY15-16 compared to Rs 18,900 crore in FY14-15. The same reached Rs 94,000 crore by end of 2017," Prasad said at the MeitY - ASSOCHAM-Ericsson Joint ICT Start-Ups Awards-2018.

In terms of volume, in 2014, India produced five crore mobile phone made locally in India which reached 15 crores in 2015-16. In 2017 the Indian mobile manufacturing industry produced 22 million mobile phones. By 2020, the minister said this number would touch 50 million.

In terms of electronics manufacturing units, Prasad said within three years, the industry added 120 such units, two-thirds of which are mobile manufacturing units, 54 in Noida alone.

"On top of that these industries employ five lakh people," he added.

With India being regarded as the world's third-largest start-up community after USA and England, Prasad said MeiTY is working in mission mode to make India's digital sector a USD 1 trillion economy in the next five years, with a potential to create 50 to 70 lakh new jobs.

Prasad opined that the BPO industry should move to small towns where overhead costs are less compared to big cities. He further said about 86 new BPOs are operating in 27 states excluding digitally rich areas. BPO centers have already come up in Patna and Muzaffarpur, while such centers would soon be opened in smaller cities like Ghazipur, Jahanabad, and Gaya, he said.

"The government will give a grant of Rs. 5 crore to start-ups doing innovation in the field of cybersecurity and healthcare," he added.

The minister also mentioned the increasing adoption of the Umang (Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance) app and the Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) app that enables secure cashless payments through mobile phones.