India exported more smartphones than petrochemicals, diamonds in fiscal 2025

A staggering $24.14 billion—that is the value of smartphones exported from India in fiscal 2025 (FY2024-2025). This is a 55 per cent jump year-on-year from last fiscal’s 15.57 billion. And most of these smartphones went to the United States, the Netherlands, Italy, Japan, and the Czech Republic, according to the recently released government data.

 

The US alone accounted for $10.6 billion in smartphones exported to the region in FY 2024-2025. This was double the exports to the US a year ago at $5.57 billion.

 

An official from the Ministry of Commerce told agencies that the “rapid ascent” of smartphones as “one of India’s top exported goods” led to it “overtaking traditional leaders like petroleum products and diamonds for the first time”. Yes, India now exports more smartphones than petrochemicals and diamonds.

 

Apart from the US, the Netherlands imported $2.2 billion of iPhones in the last fiscal. Exports to Italy were $1.26 billion and that to the Czech Republic stood at $1.17 billion.

 

Japan also imported an impressive amount of smartphones from India. Exports to Tokyo surged to $520 million in fiscal 2025, from a mere $120 million in FY 2022-2023.

 

In the past two fiscal years, exports of smartphones jumped on account of government efforts, including the much-talked-about Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme. Smartphone production units have sprung up in the country, attracting more investment, and bolstering India’s supply-chain capabilities in the sector.

 

Major global names like Apple deciding to move manufacturing of iPhones from China to India—despite a 5 to 8 per cent hike in manufacturing costs—added to increased confidence in the country as a smartphone-making hub.

Business