Apple, Samsung looking to expand in India: Rajeev Chandrasekhar

Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. are among companies interested in increasing electronics production in India, a minister said, a boon for the country’s push to challenge neighboring China as a manufacturing hub.

The South Asian nation is seeking to expand its early success in smartphones to other product categories, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, India’s minister of state for technology, told Bloomberg TV’s Rishaad Salamat and Haslinda Amin on Friday. The country is launching a $2 billion plan to boost local output of laptops, servers, tablets and other electronics.

“We’ve had considerable success and tailwinds in the smartphone segment and we have increased interest from the likes of Apple and Samsung in expanding and growing here,” Chandrasekhar said. “We want to essentially replay that and add to that.”

India’s financial incentives for smartphone manufacturing have resulted in Apple and Samsung exporting billions of dollars of handsets from the country. The new IT hardware production-linked incentive plan has been drawn up for companies such as Dell Technologies Inc., HP Inc. and Lenovo Group Ltd., Chandrasekhar said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government also wants to attract chip fabrication and chip packaging plants to India, he said. India is set to revive its effort to lure prospective chipmakers into the country as projects already disclosed, including billionaire Anil Agarwal’s $19 billion plan, are taking time to get off the ground, Bloomberg News reported this month.