Tech giants Apple, Samsung likely to benefit from MeitY's new import regime

Meanwhile, companies like HP and Acer, which do not sell mobile phones in India, are likely to miss out

Tech giants Apple and Samsung are likely to be the key beneficiaries of the new import management system that is currently being formulated by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity), experts said.

According to a proposal under discussion, Meity will give import credits to companies, which will be linked to their performance based on the domestic value of production as well as the value of their exports of electronic items.

The credits can be used by these firms to import their branded laptops, notebooks, tablets and small servers for the Indian market, part of the new “import management regime.”

Consequently, Apple and Samsung, which are one of the large domestic producer  of consumer electronics including phones in  India, and also stood among the largest exporters of mobile phones, are likely to benefit from this move, experts said.

Apple and Samsung have declined to comment.

The move, experts said, could also help Cisco, which recently announced a significant “Made in India” push.

The company is also aiming for $1 billion in exports and domestic production in the coming years.

It has also applied for the revised Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for Information Technology (IT) hardware.

In FY23, Samsung exported over $4.09 billion worth of mobile phones, and its revenues from mobile devices stood at Rs  55,000 crore in FY 22 in the country.

For Apple, their three vendors have exported $5.3 billion in FY23, and its total production value stood at $7 billion.

According to data by Canalys, Apple Inc held a 17.4 per cent share of the tablet (iPad) shipments in Q2 2023, ranked just behind Samsung, which stood at 28.2 per cent.

Both the players do not assemble the products in India (Apple imports it from Vietnam).

Apple’s share in the total personal computer (PC) market (which includes tablets as well) was 8.2 per cent in Q2 2023, making it into the top five behind HP (25.3 per cent), Lenovo (16.5 per cent), Dell (10.5 per cent), and Acer (10.1 per cent), Canalys data revealed.

At present, Samsung’s share in the PC market is minuscule, not even making it into the top five. Both the companies import their products.

For notebooks, the total shipments in the quarter stood at 2.3 million, while that of tablets was 0.87 million. Interestingly, both Apple Inc and Samsung have not applied for the Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for IT hardware, in which there are 40 applicants for incentives worth over Rs 17,000 crore.

Meity has been working on an “import management system” for laptops, tablets, notebooks, and small servers, under which all players wanting to import will have to register on the government portal from November 1.

For the next six months or one year (the government says till April 1, 2024, while companies want an extension of 12 months), there will be no restriction on imports.

Once the stipulated time is over, imports of these products will be linked to three criteria --- the value of imports for the previous year, value of domestic production, and the value of exports of electronics.