India is working on a smartphone that will be manufactured entirely within the country, with the government aiming to have the device ready for the market by the end of 2028.
Government sources told NDTV that two or three Indian companies are currently working on the project in collaboration with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
Because key components and technologies are still sourced from abroad, but neither represents a completely indigenous smartphone. Apple, for example, has significantly expanded iPhone assembly in India since the Covid-19 pandemic, while Samsung also has large-scale manufacturing operations in the country.
The country has now reached a stage where it exports about Rs 35,000 crore worth of such components to China, the sources said.
India initially focused on manufacturing smartphone components that had traditionally been imported, particularly from China, according to government sources.
It is expected to be three or four levels below an iPhone in terms of features and would be priced to make it accessible to ordinary consumers. The phone is expected to run Google’s Android operating system, which remains the dominant smartphone platform in India.
A senior government official told NDTV that the proposed phone would not be positioned as a direct competitor to Apple’s high-end iPhones.
