Covid-induced lockdown in China's tech hub Shenzhen may not impact India's electronics industry

Home to the world's largest electronics market, Huaqiangbei district in China's technology hub Shenzhen has been closed in order to contain the recent spike in Coronavirus cases. However, the four-day shutdown, to start with, will not have a significant impact on India’s electronics market, experts say.

Kamal Nandi, Business Head and Executive Vice President at Godrej Appliances, part of Godrej & Boyce said, “There will not be any impact on the Indian market. Most of the parts are procured directly from the manufacturer or distributor and not from a spot market like Huaqiangbei. Our festive month of September is fully covered, and October is partially covered. We do not foresee much impact due to the shutdown of Shenzhen market.”

Everything related with electronics, such as chipsets, spare parts, PCBA, and finished products, like cellphones, TV, CCTV camera, PC, PC accessories, drones, gaming equipment, and personal care electronics can bereadily found in Huaqiangbei. Ameen Khwaja, who heads the Indian electronics manufacturing company pTron explains that Huaqiangbei is the place from where small-time traders, who ply their trade in areas like Delhi's Khan Market or Nehru Place, or in areas like Mumbai Central in Mumbai, are the ones who usually import from this area.

“It will affect a little bit on small-time traders and manufacturers. Supplies will be delayed a little bit. But these businesses are already online so won't affect much,” Khwaja said.

Learning from uncertainties

Since the outbreak of Covid, China had imposed travel restrictions and due to which a lot of businesses had moved online on the popular Chinese app, WeChat. As a result, Indian traders too are ordering through the online channels in advance.

Learning from the uncertainties such as lockdowns due to Covid and global supply chain issues, most of the brands have planned for the festive sales in advance. For instance, Kodak TV is completely covered for the festive season of 2022.

“The last two years have proved to be a learning curve for us and the smart TV industry overall. We now ensure that we are always ahead of it and, more than anything, we never want to fall short on stock. We are hoping for a very positive response this time too. In the other times, it was a phase of figuring out the differing prices, logistical and manufacturing delays, shipping timelines, and so on. With our learnings, these things are pre-decided by us now, said Avneet Singh Marwah, Director and CEO, Super Plastronics Pvt Ltd, a Kodak Brand licencee.

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