'This was unimaginable': Amitabh Kant hails PLI as Apple vendors export $2.5 bn components to China

Former NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant on Thursday said exports of Apple components from India to China underline the success of the government's production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for smartphones.

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"The Apple ecosystem has started exporting components and sub-assemblies to China. This was unimaginable when the Smartphone PLI scheme was first conceptualised," he wrote on X.

He added that the trend "demonstrates how effective the PLI scheme has been in mobile manufacturing from the perspective of achieving the government's policy objectives across several parameters."

Kant's comments came after The Economic Times reported that Apple's vendors have exported a record $2.5 billion worth of components and sub-assemblies to China in FY26 so far.

The report said this marks a reversal of the traditional supply chain, where Chinese vendors typically exported parts to India for electronics manufacturing.

India is expected to reach $3.5 billion in electronics exports to China in FY26, with $2.8 billion already recorded till January. In comparison, such exports stood at around $920 million in FY25 and were negligible before that.

Officials cited in the report said the rise in exports to China is largely driven by Apple’s ecosystem.
Experts said the increase reflects an "unexpected windfall" from the PLI scheme and ECMS, which encouraged Apple to build a competitive local supply chain capable of exporting components back to China.

An industry executive said this upside from the PLI scheme was "unthinkable" when Apple first began shifting production of iPhones from China to India in 2021. 

In a written reply in March, the Ministry of Electronics and IT said India has become a net exporter of mobile phones and is now the second-largest mobile manufacturing country in the world.

The ministry said mobile phone production more than doubled from ₹2.14 lakh crore in FY20 to ₹5.5 lakh crore in FY25, while exports rose nearly eightfold to ₹2 lakh crore over the same period.

India now has more than 300 mobile manufacturing units, reflecting the expansion of domestic production capacity.