India’s smartphone exports reached a record $9.84 billion during the April-June quarter (Q1 FY27). The growth was mainly driven by strong exports of Made-in-India Apple iPhones. According to the latest government data, smartphone exports increased 23.4 per cent compared to the same quarter last year. During April-June FY26, India had exported smartphones worth 97.97 billion, showing a massive jump this year, news agency IANS reported.
As per the report, the United States continued to be the biggest market for smartphones manufactured in India. Strong demand for Made-in-India devices, especially iPhones, helped push exports to a record level. Smartphones played a major role in boosting India’s electronics exports during the quarter.
Earlier this year, India exported iPhones worth nearly Rs 2 lakh crore during FY26, making Apple the country’s largest branded exporter across all product categories.
According to senior industry experts, India’s smartphone manufacturing ecosystem has entered a new phase, evolving from meeting domestic demand to becoming a global export hub.
They said Apple’s expanding iPhone production, supported by manufacturing partners such as Foxconn and Tata Electronics, has played a key role in driving record exports.
“India is one of the most attractive destinations for smartphone assembling driven by govt initiatives, cheap labour, geographical positioning, distance from China. On top of this, recent custom duty exemptions on few components made it even more attractive,” Abhilash Kumar, Lead Research Advisor (Director) at SAG, told Times Now Tech.
“Further, for Apple, China diversification is key amid the trade relation between countries. Hence India becomes extremely important for Apple, especially for US exports. On the supply part both Foxconn and Tata Electronics are doing the heavy lifting, hence increasing country’s scale of assembling with every passing quarter,” he added.
Tarun Pathak, Research Director with Counterpoint Research, said India continues to be a major manufacturing hub for Apple iPhones and is expected to grow even more with the new MPMS scheme.
“We see India continues to be a strong destination for iPhone manufacturing and will grow even further especially with new MPMS scheme. Apple is now an anchor company and the operations in India remain strong through its EMS partners. Overall, a solid growth story for overall India manufacturing landscape and the next step of journey will be all about deeper local value addition,” Pathak explained.
According to Faisal Kawoosa, founder analyst at Techarc, Made-in-India is an evolution. While the first phase was about inviting global brands to make in India and for India, the second era was about Make in India for the world.
“This has started showing results where not only we started exporting but also exponentially grew in terms of value. This is exactly what was required increasing viability of manufacturing in India as well as normalising trade balance. This has also led to now working on third phase where we can now focus on domestic value addition,” Kawoosa said.