New Delhi: Indigenous electronics production is expected to reach Rs 8.42 lakh crore and export Rs 1.76 lakh crore in the current financial year, Parliament was informed on Wednesday. Minister of Electronics and IT Ashwini Vaishnaw in his submission to the Lok Sabha said India’s share of global exports has increased to approximately 1.8 per cent in the current year from 1.2 per cent last year.
“The domestic production of electronic items is expected to reach Rs 8.42 lakh crore (USD 105 billion) in the current FY 2022-23 as compared to Rs 6.40 lakh crore (USD 87.35 billion) in FY 2021-22 and is targeted to reach USD 300 billion by 2025-26,” Vaishnaw said.
The minister also said that the export of electronic goods has increased from Rs 39,978 crore (USD 5.96 billion) in FY 2016-17 to Rs 1,09,797 crore in FY 2021-22 (USD 14.6 billion), exhibiting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.39 per cent.
“India’s electronic exports are expected to reach Rs 1.76 lakh crore (USD 22 billion) in the current FY 2022-23 as compared to Rs 1.09 lakh crore (USD 14.6 billion) in FY 2021-22,” Vaishnaw added.
According to data shared by the minister, Karnataka led the electronics exports chart with exports worth USD 3,898 million (about Rs 3.22 lakh crore), followed by Uttar Pradesh USD 3,792 million (Rs 3.13 lakh crore).
TAIPEI: Taiwan chipmaker TSMC‘s talks with the German state of Saxony about building a new factory are at an advanced stage and are now focused on government subsidies to support the investment, two people familiar with the matter said.
TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker and Asia’s most valuable listed company, flagged in 2021 that it was in the early stages of reviewing a potential expansion into EU member Germany, in what would be its first European plant.
The European Union last year unveiled the European Chips Act to ease government funding rules for semiconductor plants, as the bloc tries to guarantee supplies after a chip shortage and supply chain bottlenecks during the COVID-19 pandemic.
One person briefed on the matter said talks between TSMC and Saxony are “serious and advanced”, and delegations from the eastern German state with its capital in Dresden, have been coming to Taiwan for talks with TSMC.
Given the higher costs associated with building in Germany, including for labour, TSMC has been discussing subsidies it could get in return for building the factory, said the person, who declined to be identified because the talks are private.
TSMC said in December that there was “no concrete plan” to build a chip factory in Germany.
In January, TSMC CEO C.C. Wei said the company was talking to customers and partners about building an automotive-focused plant in Europe based on customer demand and the level of government support. TSMC declined to comment further.
The EU has been courting Taiwan as one of the “like-minded” partners it would like to work with to build new plants to shore up chip supplies.
The German and Saxony governments are willing to give subsidies but they also need further EU funds, the second person familiar with the situation said.
“Without subsidies nobody will come,” the person added.
The Saxony government said decisions about building plants would be taken by companies, but added it was always in talks with leading firms about investing further in the region.
Saxony officials discussed the EU Chips Act with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on March 6 in Brussels, according to the state government.
Germany’s economy ministry said it could not comment on individual company plans, but noted the federal government was willing to support and promote semiconductor production projects under the European Chips Act.
TSMC is already expanding internationally. It has committed $40 billion to build a chip factory in the U.S. state of Arizona, and is also building one in Japan and considering a second one there.
The Arizona factory, among the largest foreign investments in U.S. history, will start production in 2024, using advanced 5-nanometre technology. Construction was announced after the U.S. passed a law granting $53 billion in subsidies and tax credits for the chips industry.
TSMC’s German factory, if is goes ahead, will likely produce less advanced chips, especially those used in the auto industry, the first person said.
“These are the kinds of chips German industry needs,” the person added.
NEW DELHI: Samsung on Thursday launched its new smartphones in the Galaxy A series, Galaxy A54 5G, and Galaxy A34 5G in India, starting from Rs 30,999.
The Galaxy A54 5G is available in two variants, 8GB RAM with 128GB storage option, priced at Rs 38,999, and 8GB RAM with 256GB storage variant, priced at Rs 40,999. Samsung Galaxy A34 5G, in contrast, has a starting price tag of Rs 30,999 for 8G RAM with 128GB storage option and 8GB RAM with 256GB storage variant, which costs Rs 32,999.
The Galaxy smartphones are available for pre-order from March 16 to March 27. They will go on sale in India from March 28 on Samsung’s official website, exclusive and partner stores, and other online platforms.
Both Samsung Galaxy A54 and Galaxy A34 smartphones sport a 6.4-inch FHD+ sAMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate. Both the phones get a 13 MP selfie camera.
The new Samsung Galaxy smartphones come with a triple camera set up at the back, while the Galaxy A54 houses a 50 MP primary camera with optical image stabilisation (OIS) along with a 12MP ultra-wide lens and a 5MP macro sensor, on the other hand, the Galaxy A34 has a 48 MP primary camera with OIS, an 8MP ultra-wide lens and a 5MP macro sensor.
The Samsung Galaxy A54 5G is powered by the Exynos 1380 SoC, while A34 5G is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 1080 SoC. Both devices pack a 5,000 mAh battery that supports 25W charging.
Both Galaxy devices come with pre-installed Android 13-based One UI 5.1 on top.
The Galaxy smartphones are offered in four color options of Awesome Lime, Awesome Graphite, Awesome Violet and Awesome White.
Google’s latest premium smartphones — Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro — offer support for 22 5G bands. The budget-friendly Pixel 6a in India has support for 19 5G bands.
MEXICO CITY: Mexican Economy Minister Raquel Buenrostro discussed the relocation of semiconductor companies in a meeting with U.S. technology company Cisco Systems Inc., the ministry said in a tweet on Wednesday.
Mexican officials and Cisco executives also spoke about Cisco’s participation in the semiconductor supply chain, the ministry said.
Tokyo: Japan will end export controls on materials for semiconductors destined for South Korea, and Seoul will withdraw a complaint filed with the World Trade Organization, the countries announced Thursday.
Trade ministries from the two sides announced the decisions as South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol arrived in Tokyo for a summit with Japan’s prime minister intended to rebuild ties between the two neighbours.
TAIPEI: Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconn has won an order to make AirPods for Apple Inc and plans to build a factory in India to produce the wireless earphones, two people with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
The deal will see Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics maker and assembler of around 70% of all iPhones, become an AirPod supplier for the first time and underlines efforts by the key Apple supplier to further diversify production away from China. AirPods are currently made by a range of Chinese suppliers.
One source said Foxconn will invest more than $200 million in the new India AirPod plant in the southern Indian state of Telangana. It wasn’t immediately clear how much the AirPod order would be worth.
The person, who requested anonymity as the matter was not public yet, said Foxconn officials had debated internally for months about whether to assemble AirPods due to relatively lower profit margins on making the device, but ultimately opted to go ahead with the deal to “reinforce engagement” with Apple.
“That way, we are more likely to get orders for their new products,” the person said.
The decision to set up production in India was requested by Apple, according to the source.
Foxconn vies with Taiwanese rivals such as Wistron Corp and Pegatron Corp to win more orders from Apple, the world’s most valuable company.
A subsidiary, Foxconn Interconnect Technology Ltd, plans to start construction of a manufacturing facility in Telangana in the second half of this year and begin production by the end of 2024 at the earliest, the person said.
Shares in the Foxconn unit jumped nearly 9% after Reuters first reported the news, reversing an earlier loss of 2.2%. Shares in Foxconn itself traded up 0.5%, while the Taipei benchmark was down 1.1%.
A second person with direct knowledge of the matter, who also declined to be identified as the matter was not yet public, said the Foxconn subsidiary will make AirPods in India without providing further details.
Analysts have previously said Apple has asked suppliers including Foxconn to make AirPods in India, but details such as the size of investment, timeline and which suppliers have manufacturing plans in the country have not been disclosed.
Foxconn declined to comment. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Apple and its key suppliers have been shifting production away from China, where strict Covid-19 curbs disrupted Foxconn’s biggest iPhone factory last year. They are also seeking to avoid a potential hit to business from mounting Sino-US trade friction.
Foxconn said on Wednesday it would ramp up investment outside China to meet customer demand and lower its reliance on China for production.
It was not immediately clear whether Foxconn’s production plan would have impact on current AirPod suppliers, including Luxshare Precision Industry.
Luxshare did not immediately reply to a Reuters’ request for comment.
Goertek Inc, another supplier, said in November an overseas client had asked it to suspend assembly work for a smart acoustic product, which analysts at the time identified as AirPods Pro 2, and the suspension would hit revenue by up to 3.3 billion yuan ($480 million).
The retired founder of TSMC said on Thursday that even as he supported U.S. efforts to slow China’s advances in the semiconductor industry, the “bifurcation” of the global supply chain and the reversal of globalisation would increase prices and reduce the ubiquity of chips that power the modern world.
“There’s no question in my mind that, in the chip sector, globalisation is dead. Free trade is not quite that dead, but it’s in danger,” Morris Chang said, speaking at an event hosted by Taiwan’s CommonWealth Magazine.
“When the costs go up, the pervasiveness of chips will either stop or slow down considerably,” said Chang, who remains an influential voice in Taiwan’s chip industry. “We are going to be in a different game.”
In Taiwan, TSMC, Asia’s most valuable listed company and a major Apple Inc supplier, is widely regarded as the “sacred mountain protecting the country,” because of its economic importance.
China has in recent years ramped up diplomatic and military pressure against Taiwan, which Beijing views as its territory, raising concerns about the fate of the chip fabs that dot Taiwan’s western coast and produce the majority of the world’s most advanced chips if China blockades or attacks the island.
Change described the U.S. policy of “onshoring” and “friendshoring” as a problem for Taiwan, referring to policies to boost chip manufacturing in the U.S. or in allied countries.
“Friendshore does not include Taiwan. In fact, the commerce secretary has said repeatedly that Taiwan is a very dangerous place, we cannot – America cannot – rely on Taiwan for chips,” Chang said. “Now that, of course, is I think Taiwan’s dilemma.”
“I look at the most advanced chip they are making and they are making it with difficulty, but that chip TSMC was making five or six years ago with ease.”
A woman takes a picture with the new Xiaomi 13 Pro during the Xiaomi presentation at the Mobile World Congress (MWC), the telecom industry’s biggest annual gathering, in Barcelona on February 26, 2023. (Photo by Pau BARRENA / AFP)
By Munsif Vengattil, Aditya Kalra and Saurabh Sharma
NEW DELHI/LUCKNOW: Xiaomi Corp is overhauling its India strategy after misjudging consumer tastes in mobile phones, a costly lapse that has allowed Samsung Electronics to pip the Chinese company to the top spot in the world’s second biggest market for the devices.
While Xiaomi remained focused on selling mobile phones under 10,000 rupees ($120), Indian consumers were willing to pay up for better looking models with richer features. South Korea’s Samsung launched products to meet those aspirations and offered innovative financing schemes that made them affordable to most.
Those moves have helped Samsung wrest leadership of India’s competitive mobile phones market from Xiaomi, with data from Hong Kong-based Counterpoint Research showing it had a 20% market share for the last quarter of 2022 compared to the Chinese company’s 18%.
“The Indian market is witnessing a ‘premiumisation’ trend. (But) Xiaomi has been caught underprepared for the shift with a budget phones-heavy portfolio,” said Tarun Pathak, a research director at Counterpoint.
The loosening of Xiaomi’s vice-like grip on the 626 million Indian smartphone users – the second biggest after China – shows how companies that fail to cater to changing consumer preferences in a fast-growing economy with rising disposable incomes are being punished.
Most famously in India, Tata Motors’ 100,000 rupees ($1,200) Nano, billed as the world’s cheapest car, was shunned by consumers who associated the low price tag with inferior quality.
Indians’ push for more expensive mobile phones to consume videos and other content will also benefit social media app providers such as Meta, and iPhone maker Apple Inc, which so far has a tiny market share in the country due to its sole focus on high-end phones, priced from $605 to as high as $2,304, according to its website.
According to Counterpoint, the market share of the sub-$120 phones in India fell to 26% in 2022 from 41% two years ago. And premium phones – priced above 30,000 ($360) – saw their share double to 11% in the same period.
Xiaomi and Samsung both count India as a key growth market, with smartphones their top selling electronic device. The Chinese company recorded total revenue of $4.8 billion in 2021-22 in India, while Samsung registered $10.3 billion in sales, of which $6.7 billion came from smartphones.
Xiaomi, though, is already facing heat in India due to the departures of at least five senior executives, and increased government scrutiny amid frosty relations with neighbouring China. The company has $674 million of its funds frozen by the country’s financial crime agency for alleged illegal remittances to foreign entities, which Xiaomi denies.
A Reuters check on product listings on Xiaomi’s website showed the mismatch between consumer needs and the products the company has been offering. Xiaomi showed six smartphones priced above $360, compared with Samsung’s 16. Under $120, Samsung had seven models, while Xiaomi listed 39 – most of which were shown to be out-of-stock.
And premium phones accounted for only 0%-1% of Xiaomi’s total India phone shipments in the last two years, when Samsung’s higher-end phones more than doubled their share to 13%, Counterpoint data showed.
But Xiaomi, which has acknowledged it introduced “too many” models in the past, is revamping its product line-up to focus on premium smartphones.
It launched in January the Redmi Note 12 whose top-end variant is priced above 30,000 rupees, and more recently the Xiaomi 13 Pro at 79,999 rupees ($970) – its highest priced phone in India. The strategic shift seems to have paid immediate dividends, with the Redmi Note 12 clocking sales of $61 million within two weeks of its launch.
“We have laid out a streamlined and cleaner portfolio with a focused approach to building expertise in the premium segment, and the launch of our latest flagship, Xiaomi 13 Pro, is a step in that direction,” said its India President Muralikrishnan B.
“We understand that we have a long way to go in this journey, and therefore are bringing in much stronger products.”
LOANS FOR PHONES
A Samsung scheme, run with its financing partners that says it offers “convenient and assured” loans, played a significant part in its recent success in India, helping generate $1 billion in device sales last year.
A poster of Samsung’s offering that Reuters spotted on a dusty street used by fruit sellers in Uttar Pradesh state said that even those with no loan history, low credit scores or without salary slips could get a phone.
Sanjeev Kumar Verma, owner of a nearby multi-brand phone shop, has benefitted from the company’s loan scheme. Speaking to Reuters in his shop, where hundreds of phones are stacked on shelves, Verma said he used to sell five Samsung phones each month, but has quadrupled that to 20 now, 18 of which are via the loan scheme.
Verma, and another smartphone vendor in Mumbai, said that unlike rivals, Samsung required no local address proof, making it easier for migrant workers or those working outside their home state to acquire phones on loans. Samsung did not comment on the remarks by the vendors.
The growth in premium segment phones was much higher in small towns than in big cities, Samsung’s India mobile unit head Raju Pullan told Reuters in February, adding almost half the consumers who opted for its financing scheme were first-time loan seekers.
Samsung says its financing app installed on smartphones can lock the device and block outgoing calls for missing loan payments.
Xiaomi has also tapped partnerships to offer loans, calling them a key growth driver for sales of phones priced above 15,000 rupees ($183) and adding it will explore more such offerings.
Muralikrishnan said the company will also open more stores beyond its current network of 20,000 retail partners, and boost local procurement of mobile phone parts, likely reducing costs.
Some industry analysts said the new strategy could help the Chinese company return to solid growth in India.
“Xiaomi has historically enjoyed a strong brand equity, has a robust online and offline channel presence, and can spring a comeback with a potentially strong premium and value-for-money product mix,” said Prabhu Ram, head of industry intelligence at CyberMedia Research.
WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO: A chip plant that South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co Ltd is building in Taylor, Texas, will cost the world’s biggest memory chipmaker over $25 billion, up more than $8 billion from initial forecasts, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The increase in cost is primarily due to inflation, the people said, declining to be named because the information was not public.
“The higher construction cost is about 80% of the cost increase,” one of the sources said. “The materials have gotten more expensive,” the source added.
Samsung did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Chipmakers are applying for billions in grants from the Biden administration thanks to the CHIPS Act, aimed at ramping up chip production in the United States. But increasing costs raise questions about how far those dollars will go. The bill was proposed in 2020, before a historic run-up in inflation that U.S. officials are still working to tame.
U.S. Commerce Department officials said early this month that most government grants will only cover up to 15% of the cost of new plants. Meanwhile, in the three years since lawmakers first floated the $52 billion figure for CHIPS Act grants, of which only $39 billion is now earmarked for direct investment in plant construction, the cost of labor has risen sharply, along with the price of construction materials like steel.
That could push up the cost of what are already huge spending plans. Last year, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, the world’s largest contract chip manufacturer, announced it was more than tripling a planned investment in a new plant in Arizona to $40 billion.
Meanwhile, Intel Corp announced a $20 billion chip factory in Ohio that it could expand to cost up to $100 billion. Also last year, chipmaker Micron Technology said it planned to invest up to $100 billion over the next 20-plus years to build a computer chip factory complex in upstate New York.
Samsung, the world’s No.2 contract chip manufacturer, announced its Taylor, Texas, plant in 2021. It aims to make advanced chips for functions such as artificial intelligence, 5G and mobile phones, and promises to create 2,000 high-tech jobs. Unlike some of its rivals, Samsung has already broken ground.
One of the sources told Reuters the company is rushing to finish the plant by 2024 so that it is producing chips by 2025, which would put the company ahead of a 2026 deadline to secure investment tax credits on tools for the factory.
Both sources said Samsung had already spent as much as half of the $17 billion initially projected for the Taylor site and noted that the company might eventually opt to build additional factories.
(Reporting by Alexandra Alper and Stephen Nellis; additional reporting by Heekyong Yang and Joyce Lee in Seoul; Editing by Chris Sanders and Lisa Shumaker)
Gurugram: A driver of a logistics firm and two staffers of an e-commerce company have been booked after mobilephones worth Rs 28 lakh were reported stolen, police said on Wednesday. The FIR in the case was lodged at the Bilaspur police station on Tuesday on the basis of a complaint from Santosh Yadav, assistant manager (operation) of Bluedart Express Ltd, they said.
In his complaint, he said one of their customers, DHL Logistics Pvt Ltd, Chennai, had booked a shipment for delivery to Flipkart India Private Ltd’s warehouse in Khalikpur in Farrukhnagar on February 28, they said.
Part inner contents of the aforesaid airway bill were found stolen post-delivery, police said citing the complaint.
“On February 25, an airway bill was delivered to Reliance Retails Ltd Distribution Centre in Farrukhnagar. Following internal investigation and update in our records, we found it was wrongly delivered to Reliance Retails Ltd Farrukhnagar,” Yadav said in his complaint.
“Further, we retrieved that shipment from Reliance Retails Ltd Farrukhnagar in a vehicle and further we delivered to the correct consignee Flipkart India Private Ltd where 40 iPhones and 14 plus mobiles were received short in shipment which valued at Rs 28,18,898,” he said.
During internal investigation, it was observed that shift in-charge Bhanu Pratap, delivery staff Manoj, logistic company driver Shiv Kumar, residents of Bhora Kalan village, were suspected of stealing the phones from the shipment at Bilaspur, Yadav said in his complaint.
Following the complaint, an FIR was registered against all the three under sections 407 (criminal breach of trust) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code at the Bilaspur police station on Tuesday.
“As per the complaint, FIR has been registered and we are verifying the facts. The accused will be arrested soon,” SHO Bilaspur Inspector Rahul Dev said.
