Samsung way ahead of Its rivals in local value addition
Apple has been upstaging Samsung in terms of revenue growth and exports out of India, but the Korean major is still significantly ahead of rivals in terms of local value addition.
Industry executives and market trackers said while the industry average for local value addition in electronics manufacturing hovers around 22-25% currently, an increase from 18% in 2022, Samsung's local value addition is higher.
This is partly because Samsung has been manufacturing mobile phones as well as other appliances locally in India much before the government's production-linked incentive scheme came into force and boosted India to become the second largest mobile phone manufacturer.
According to data from Counterpoint Research, Samsung has localised high-ticket components such as the display assembly and batteries, which contribute around 13.5% and 6% respectively to the bill of materials (BoM). It has also localised printed circuit board assembly (PCBA), passive and electro-mechanical components such as mechanics, connectors and chargers, as well as packaging material for the box, data accessed exclusively from the research firm showed.
Meanwhile, Apple's contract manufacturers-Foxconn (Hon Hai), Wistron (now owned by Tata Group) and Pegatron, which started making iPhones locally since the PLI scheme came into effect-only procure iPhone casings from Tata Electronics and casings for AirPods from Jabil, along with some passive components including resistors and transistors, besides packaging, resulting in much lower local value
