Chinese-Made Smartphones Begin to Be Abandoned, New King Emerges Suddenly
Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia - China is beginning to be abandoned as the giant centre of global smartphone manufacturing. This is due to the heated geopolitical relations between the United States (US) and China, which bring threats of high tariffs on products imported from Xi Jinping’s powerhouse nation.
Seeing this opportunity, India is moving quickly to attract the interest of global smartphone vendors to produce devices in its country. This aligns with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s agenda to boost domestic manufacturing.
India is targeting an expansion of electronic device manufacturing to reach US$500 billion by 2030, quoted from Reuters, Friday (13/3/2026).
India has produced smartphones worth nearly US$60 billion in fiscal year 2024-2025. That figure jumped 28-fold compared to the previous decade, according to government data.
Even exports of smartphones for the same period surged to nearly US$21.7 billion, or a 127-fold increase from the previous decade. Smartphones are India’s largest export product throughout 2025.
With these facts, it is not excessive to call India the new ‘king’ of smartphones that will replace China’s position.
Apple is one of the smartphone kings most aggressively moving iPhone production facilities from China to India. A Bloomberg report some time ago stated that 55 million iPhones were produced in India throughout 2025. That number rose by about 53% from the previous year, which was ‘only’ 36 million iPhone units.
The large amount of iPhone production in India is equivalent to roughly a quarter of global iPhone production. According to the Bloomberg report, total annual iPhone production is around 220-230 million units.
New Delhi is considering linking new incentives to exports to encourage more globally competitive production, said an Indian official. The incentives are likely to include investments starting from April this year, the official added.
Previously, smartphone industry leaders like Apple and Samsung relied on India’s national production incentive scheme, a programme worth nearly US$21 billion designed to rival China’s factory power. However, that incentive programme ends this month and is planned to be renewed.
The incentive programme helped Apple produce the most expensive and latest iPhone models in India, after previously only producing cheaper models. Trump’s high tariffs on China also drove some production shifts.
India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has held consultations with industry regarding the design of a new incentive scheme, said an industry executive familiar with the discussions. The ministry did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.