Mint Kolkata

‘India can beat China in electronic­s space’

- Gulveen Aulakh gulveen.aulakh@livemint.com NEW DELHI

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”.

 ?? BLOOMBERG ?? Firms squeezed by political pressure would diversify their supply chains out of China and prop up alternativ­e brands.
BLOOMBERG Firms squeezed by political pressure would diversify their supply chains out of China and prop up alternativ­e brands.

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