To further incentivise the domestic value addition and Make in India, the finance minister Arun Jaitley in Budget 2018 has proposed to increase customs duty on mobile phones from 15% to 20%, on some of their parts and accessories to 15% and on certain parts of TVs to 15%. This measure will promote creation of more jobs in the country and give a big boost to Make in India. In fact, this will make the domestic mobile phones cheaper than imported ones and will generate more demand.
Commenting on duty differential, Ajey Mehta, Vice President India, HMD Global said, “HMD Global continues its strong emphasis on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Make in India campaign. While the import duties for mobile phones increased to 20%, along with a 15% duty on key components, this will have a minimum impact on our business, as all of our current portfolio of Nokia phones are manufactured in India.”
Speaking on Budget 2018, Sanjay Kalirona, CEO & Director, COMIO said, “The Union Budget-2018 is a positive step towards India’s growing smartphone market. The increased custom duty on mobiles will further boost local manufacturing and will be the essential push to create a manufacturing eco-system in India. Smartphones play a crucial role in today’s times and this budget is an extension to the ‘Digital India’ initiative. With focus on development, it is a progressive budget and is a stepping stone to India’s growth story.”
Commenting on Budget 2018, Yogesh Bhatia, MD, Detel said, “Certainly the budget is going to revive the confidence of the domestic entrepreneurs. The increase in the customs duty on mobile phones and TVs was indeed a much needed move. The rejig will make imported products expensive and would provide further impetus to the ‘Make in India’ initiative of the government.”
Ashwin Bhandari, CEO, iVOOMi India said, “We at iVooMi will be changing over to 100% (currently is above 95%) Make in India with this initiative and start the development of localisation for PCBA SMT, battery complete unit, transducers making in India to drive the growth to next level.”
Vivek Agarwal, Co-founder, M-tech Informatics said, “We are glad that our demand of increasing customs duty on mobile phone CBU (completely built units) imports to 20% from the existing 15% has been met. This will prevent dumping of phones in the Indian market, boost domestic manufacturing and provide a level playing field to home grown brands.”
Manish Sharma, President and CEO, Panasonic India & South-Asia and President, CEAMA said, “ACE industry welcomes the Budget, particularly the push for local manufacturing of mobile phones and consumer electronics by increasing customs duty on imported products and components, a move that is consistent with the government’s Make-in-India initiative.”
The MSME sector, which forms the backbone of the electronics industry will benefit from reduction in corporate tax from 30% to 25% and the allocation of around Rs. 3,800 crore for the development of the sector will translate to strengthening the electronics eco-system at large added Sharma.
Syed Tajuddin, CEO, Coolpad India said, “This budget is pretty regular with a mix bag of things, nothing path breaking or outstanding to boost the manufacturing sector. The increase in custom duty from 15% to 20% will definitely hamper the cost to customer, especially when it comes to getting repairs for the high-end devices. While increase in custom duty on handsets will compel brands to manufacture or assemble more in India, still there is not great support for local ecosystem for manufacturing spare parts.”
All this is win-win for local manufacturing as this will increase localisation thereby providing increased employment opportunity for local youth in the country.
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