Licence Regime: Laptop, Tablet majors set to increase imports

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Apple, HP, Lenovo, Asus and Xiaomi are looking to ship in as many laptops and tablets as possible to the country before import restrictions kick in on November 1, multiple industry executives and analysts said. These firms will increase imports by up to 50% more than what they had initially planned till October end to ensure there is enough pipeline stock for 4-6 months when the new licensing regime for imports of laptops, tablets, and personal computers begins, they said.

While December to February are usually lean sales months for these products, these companies — particularly those that have no local manufacturing — don't want to take any chances in case stock availability becomes an issue once the licensing regime kicks in, people cited above said. «Some brands like Apple and Asus will get more imports since they have no local manufacturing yet for these products,» said Navkendar Singh, associate vice-president at market researcher IDC India.

«Others, too, will import more since local production scaling up takes at least 6-9 months,» he said. The government had on August 3 announced that imports of laptops, tablets, all-in-one PCs and ultra-small form factor computers and servers would be allowed only «against a valid licence for restricted imports».

A day later, it deferred the implementation of the restrictions to November 1, 2023. The move seeks to promote local manufacturing of products included in the IT hardware performance-linked incentives (PLI) scheme.