India’s electronics manufacturing sector has grown considerably over the past decade, helped along by the Make in India and Atmanirbhar Bharat initiatives. What started as a push to reduce import dependence has turned into one of the country’s more visible industrial success stories. India is now the world’s second-largest mobile phone manufacturer, with electronics production reaching ₹13.11 lakh crore and exports touching ₹4.24 lakh crore in 2025–26. Along the way, the sector has created large numbers of jobs, built up domestic manufacturing capacity, and pulled India further into global electronics value chains.
Exports, and jobs
The sector has become a major source of industrial employment, adding around 25 lakh jobs over the past ten years. That’s a significant number for an industry that barely had a manufacturing footprint in India a decade ago. Mobile phone manufacturing alone supports close to 12 lakh direct and indirect jobs across its value chain, spanning everything from component suppliers to assembly lines. MeitY’s flagship schemes have contributed over 5.3 lakh jobs to this total, 1.8 lakh through the PLI Scheme and another 3.5 lakh through other major programmes.
Manufacturing hubs in Hosur and Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu, and Bengaluru in Karnataka, together employ more than a lakh people, a sign of how quickly this industry has expanded in the south of the country in particular. Several of the larger facilities have also pushed up women’s participation in industrial jobs, something that hasn’t always been the norm in manufacturing. One major electronics manufacturer employs close to 80,000 people, and women make up around 65 per cent of that workforce, a figure that stands out even within the sector.
Women’s participation
Women have, in fact, become central to this growth story rather than a side note to it. They account for nearly 30 per cent of the sector’s total workforce, and around 70 per cent of the direct workforce in mobile phone manufacturing specifically. The PLI Scheme for Large-Scale Electronics Manufacturing has created jobs for about 90,000 women, adding further to their presence in formal manufacturing roles that were, until recently, harder to access.
On the production side, the numbers tell their own story. Output has climbed from ₹1.90 lakh crore in 2014–15 to an estimated ₹13.11 lakh crore in 2025–26, close to a seven-fold rise in just over a decade. Exports over the same period went from ₹38,263 crore to ₹4.24 lakh crore, making electronics India’s third-largest export category, worth USD 47.96 billion in FY 2025–26. Localisation has picked up alongside this growth: more than 40 major component manufacturers have set up or expanded operations in India, and domestic value addition has moved from 15 per cent to 23 per cent, meaning a larger share of every device made in India is now actually built here rather than assembled from imported parts.
Mobile phones have driven most of this shift, and by a wide margin. Production rose from ₹18,900 crore in 2014–15 to ₹6.27 lakh crore in 2025–26, while exports jumped from ₹1,566 crore to ₹2.60 lakh crore, a 165-fold increase that’s hard to find a parallel for in other sectors. Mobile phones are now India’s largest export item in FY 2025–26. Back in 2014–15, they ranked 153rd, a gap that captures just how far the segment has come in a relatively short window.
Key Takeaway: The PLI Scheme for Large-Scale Electronics Manufacturing has been central to all of this. As of March 31, 2026, it has drawn cumulative investments of over ₹20,600 crore, with production exceeding ₹11.62 lakh crore and exports crossing ₹6.53 lakh crore, cementing India’s place as a global electronics manufacturing hub rather than just an assembly destination.
Between rising production, growing exports, stronger domestic value addition and more women entering the workforce, electronics manufacturing has become one of the clearer success stories in India’s industrial growth over the past decade, and one that looks set to keep compounding as more of the value chain moves onshore.
MCQ’s:
1. Electronics exports touched approximately ______ in 2025–26.
A. ₹2.60 lakh crore
B. ₹4.24 lakh crore
C. ₹6.53 lakh crore
D. ₹13.11 lakh crore
2. Which two flagship initiatives have been major drivers of India’s electronics manufacturing growth?
A. Startup India and Skill India
B. Make in India and Atmanirbhar Bharat
C. Digital India and Smart Cities Mission
D. PM GatiShakti and Bharatmala
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