‘India can beat China in electronics space’
India has the ability and opportunity to produce local smartphone brands that can overtake the likes of Xiaomi, as foreign firms operating under tremendous political pressure in China have the incentive to diversify their manufacturing centres and prop up alternative brands, Chris Miller, historian and author of the 2022 book Chip Wars, said.
He, however, emphasized that the world’s fifth-largest economy could, instead, look at bolstering its capabilities in emerging areas such as electric vehicles and medical technologies to challenge Chinese manufacturers, as the smartphone segment was stagnating.
China is a dominant player in consumer electronics and smartphone space, with brands such as Xiaomi, Vivo, and Oppo cornering a significant market share globally. In a webinar hosted by Indian Electronics and Semiconductor Association chairman Satya Gupta, Miller said that the incentive for India to create alternative brands in consumer electronics as well was becoming larger every year.
“The fact that all foreign firms working in China feel increasingly squeezed by the political pressure that you get from Beijing. That gives them a bigger incentive every year to try to support the development of alternative brands, so I don’t see a reason why an Indianbased smartphone company couldn’t produce an Indian brand and sourcing components from India, from the US, Taiwan or Japan, and displace
Xiaomi or displace vendors at that segment of the market,” he said in response to a question on India abilities to create its own product brands.
“As the electronics ecosystem gets built out in India, and it certainly is getting major amounts of new investment right now, it becomes much more plausible for Indian brands to source largely Indian-manufactured components for electronics India,” he emphasized.
“And I think smartphones, probably, (are) not the only case where that's possible. Other types of consumer electronics, too. I think Chinese firms are equally vulnerable,” he added.
In response to a question on chip design firms like Qualcomm partnering with Indian brands to create product companies that would take market share away from Chinese firms, Miller said that it was “possible and increasingly possible”.