India’s electronic manufacturing service industry is humming — now to stick to the flight path

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

India's electronics manufacturing services (EMS) into sharp focus:

• On Tuesday, reports indicated that 1 lakh units of Google Pixel 8 smartphones will be made in India by Padget Electronics, subsidiary of Noida-headquartered EMS company Dixon. Of the 1 lakh phones, 25-30% will be exported.
• In April, Apple pretty much doubled its exports of iPhones, produced by its EMS partners in India, from $580 mn a year ago to $1.1 bn.
• In May, Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran assumed an additional role — Tata Electronics chairman. The Tatas plan to allocate $14 bn to the semiconductor business. This includes a chip fabrication facility at Dholera in Gujarat to serve global markets for semiconductors in automotive, computing, communications and AI, in collaboration with PSMC Taiwan. An OSAT (outsourced semiconductor assembly and test) facility at Morigaon in Assam is also part of the Tata plan.

India's EMS industry began in the early '60s, and grew rapidly as original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) for electronic products started engaging smaller companies to handle their manufacturing. EMS companies soon started leveraging scale, exploiting their growing expertise for multi-OEM manufacturing, material procurement, resource optimisation and cost reduction.

This greatly benefited their OEM customers in respect of inventories and human resources, and to deal with fluctuating demand. Advent of surface-mount technology (SMT), where components are mounted directly on the surface of a printed circuit board, and wave/bulk soldering accelerated the industry.