Apple’s vendors exported a record $2.5 billion of components and sub-assemblies to China in financial year 2025-2026 (FY26), indicating early success of the government’s electronics component manufacturing scheme (ECMS) notified last year. The development also marks the beginning of a reversal of the traditional flow, under which Chinese vendors exported parts to India for mobile phones and other electronic items.
India is likely to reach $3.5 billion in electronics exports to China in FY26, with $2.8 billion already achieved up to January. In FY25, electronics exports to China stood at around $920 million, and were negligible before that. As FY26 data across other sectors becomes available, India’s total exports to China are expected to cross $18 billion, up from $14.25 billion in FY25. The increase is attributed entirely to Apple’s exports.
Experts said the jump in electronics exports to China represents an unexpected benefit stemming from the smartphone production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme and ECMS, which together persuaded Apple to build a local ecosystem that is now sufficiently competitive in quality to export components and sub-assemblies to China. Under the smartphone PLI scheme over five years, Apple produced a total of $70 billion worth of iPhones in India, of which $51 billion, or nearly 73 per cent, were exported, the majority to the United States. This makes iPhones India’s largest exported commodity for the previous financial year.
Foxconn, Tata Electronics, Tata-owned Pegatron, Motherson, Salcomp, TRIL Bangalore, and Yuzhan Technology are among the Indian Apple vendors driving exports to China. The components exported include printed circuit board assemblies (PCBAs), mechanics, housing, flex PCBAs, and conductive graphite buttons such as those used for volume and power controls. These exports are classified under three harmonised system of nomenclature codes and have gathered pace since April 2025.
While the smartphone PLI scheme has been a significant success, driven largely by Apple’s iPhone production in India, ECMS is set to replicate that achievement in the components segment. The government is now focusing on increasing domestic value addition, manufacturing, and exports of components under ECMS. With the smartphone scheme having ended in March, the industry has sought a PLI 2.0 to sustain the momentum.
Combined with PLI 2.0 and ECMS, Indian companies could account for 30 to 35 per cent of global mobile phone production and emerge as a significant force in electronics supply chains. China, currently the source of a large share of India’s electronics imports, could in turn become an important export destination for Indian component manufacturers.
