Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has strongly countered Bloomberg opinion columnist Andy Mukherjee after he contended that India could never match China’s success in mobile phone manufacturing, earning a sharp “cope harder” response from the union minister.
The development transpired after Bloomberg posted a video featuring Andy and wrote, “One in four iPhones is made in India, but imported parts and costly subsidies complicate the success story,” alleging that “copying China’s manufacturing model may not pay off” for the country.
However, Vaishnaw rebutted the claims made in the video by laying out the numbers behind the mobile manufacturing Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme. He pointed out that the government had provided incentives worth Rs 19,000 crore, while tax collections had already reached Rs 25,000 crore. A further Rs 3 lakh crore had been collected in GST.
He also highlighted the employment generated by the sector, noting that electronics manufacturing has granted jobs to 25 lakh people, of whom 12 lakh work in mobile manufacturing alone.
Mobile PLI stats as follows: Government incentive paid: Rs 19,000 Cr. Direct tax collected: Rs 25,000 Cr. GST collected: Rs 3,00,000 Cr. Electronics manufacturing employs 25 Lakh people; mobile manufacturing alone employs 12 Lakh. Cope harder!!
— Ashwini Vaishnaw (@AshwiniVaishnaw) October 27, 2026
What is said in the video
Mukherjee, who was in Hong Kong, stated, “I’m in the busy Sham Shui Po district, where today I’m going to take apart an iPhone. I want to show why it is that India should not try to emulate China in high-tech manufacturing, because doing it is going to be both pointless and rather expensive.”
He then showed a mainboard and mentioned, “Indian factories used to import them already pre-assembled, but nowadays they import the bare boards and put the electronic components on the mainboard by themselves. That’s genuine progress. Making mainboards locally has helped India’s mobile trade balance improve by $2.1 billion in just one year.”
One in four iPhones is made in India, but imported parts and costly subsidies complicate the success story. @andymukherjee70 takes apart an iPhone to explain why copying China’s manufacturing model may not pay off 🎥 https://t.co/eZNCId6MV4
— Bloomberg Opinion (@opinion) October 26, 2026
Andy acknowledged that one in every four iPhones is now made in India but added that the nation is heavily reliant on imports of processors, memory chips, displays, lenses, and batteries. He asserted, “By my estimates, these component imports still cost more than India earns by exporting finished handsets. So is this progress worth the price? The government pays phone assemblers subsidies to compensate them for India’s high manufacturing costs.”
He further argued that taxpayers are likely spending more than $1 in subsidies for each additional dollar paid to workers in these industries. Therefore, the cost of phone subsidies increases when the demand for AI drives up global memory prices, remarking, “Now India wants to move into advanced semiconductors, which are a lot harder to make. But even with billions of dollars in subsidies, India has only gotten to testing and packaging. A real high-end fab is still years away.”
Andy declared that it would be wiser for India to focus on its capabilities in engineering and design while investing in businesses such as clothes and footwear, which may employ tens of millions of people.
He insisted that New Delhi should not even aspire to match Beijing’s production scale, concluding, “Emulating China’s success in manufacturing would require speed and scale and risk-taking that Indian entrepreneurs may struggle to match. Apple can certainly help India move up the manufacturing value chain. But paying ever-larger subsidies just to try and become the next China? That’s probably not a winning trade.”
Notably, Andy is infamous for peddling absurd claims about India, from likening the India-US trade framework to an IMF bailout and pushing conspiracy theories about EVM hacking while overlooking states where the Congress won, to making apocalyptic predictions about the country’s economy after Covid and arguing against buying discounted Russian oil.
