India, the Sleeping Tigress  

EMSNOW is very pleased to announce a new contributor who will be reporting on electronics manufacturing in India for us: Rajeev Kulkarni. India is getting a lot of attention recently; it is spending $18 billion this year alone to improve highways, and there is a sense that infrastructure issues such as the power grid may improve enough to make Indian electronics manufacturing plausible.

With more than 25 years in the electronics manufacturing industry, Rajeev Kulkarni is also President and Founder of SMTA’s India Chapter, organizing technical events for engineers there. He has worked in many end markets (Semiconductors, Magnetic Components, Printed Circuit Boards and Assemblies, Capital Equipment) on a number of global projects. Rajeev has a background in electrical engineering from Karnataka University and export marketing with the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade. Currently he resides in Dallas working in the field of Electronics and Automation.

 

“The Electronics Industry is experiencing a very high growth rate in APAC countries – mainly India, China, South Korea, and Japan due to a rapid increase in demand in various market segments,” Rajeev explained. “The electronics market in India is one of the largest in the world and is expected to reach $400 billion in 2020, based on enabling policies by the Indian government, such as the ‘Make in India’ and ‘Digital India’ initiative.  Local manufacturing in the electronics industry is a very hot topic right now.

“FDI(Foreign Direct Investment) in electronics manufacturing in 2016 was an all-time high of around $20Billion.The Goods and Service Tax (GST) regime proposed and implemented in 2017, has benefitted the Electronics System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) Industry, as the projected tax rates are expected to substantially reduce manufacturing costs.

“The Indian IT-Electronics Sector has witnessed consistent growth in terms of market size; however, challenges like high costs of power and finance, high transaction costs, disadvantageous tax structure and lack of development of a healthy supply chain, have kept India behind in electronics hardware manufacturing capabilities. To overcome these challenges, government authorities are meeting with industry leaders to find some fruitful solutions so they can overcome these hurdles and make India competitive.”

We look forward to hearing regular reports from Rajeev on the state of manufacturing in India.