Smartphone export boom has an Apple-sized catch

Five years of the government’s production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme have certainly transformed the country into a major smartphone export base, but almost 87% of the increase in smartphone exports during the period has come from Apple.

Smartphone exports surged from $5.5 billion in FY22 to $29.36 billion in FY26, but the non-Apple portion rose only 74%, from about $4.2 billion to $7.4 billion. Apple’s iPhone exports, in contrast, jumped nearly 17-fold from about $1.25 billion to around $22 billion, making the company the overwhelming driver of the export surge.