New Delhi is allegedly seeking ways to prevent Chinese smartphone manufacturers from selling their devices for less than 12,000 rupees ($150) within India as part of an effort to protect domestic technology companies struggling to compete with the cheap phone makers, Bloomberg reported on Monday citing “people familiar with the matter.”
“The move is aimed at pushing Chinese giants out of the lower segment of the world’s second-biggest mobile market, according to people familiar with the matter. It coincides with mounting concern about high-volume [Chinese] brands like Realme and Transsion undercutting local manufacturers, they said, asking not to be identified discussing a sensitive matter,” Bloomberg reported on August 8.
The news outlet said it reached out to representatives from India’s technology ministry to confirm the claims but did not receive a response by press time Monday.
“It’s unclear whether [Indian] Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government will announce any policies or use informal channels to convey its preference to Chinese companies,” Bloomberg’s sources said.
The U.S.-based media outlet said New Delhi’s alleged efforts to restrict the pricing of Chinese-made smartphones on the Indian market would likely “[deal] a blow to brands including Xiaomi Corp.”
People walk past a Xiaomi store in Beijing on January 15, 2021, as shares in the company collapsed on January 15 after the United States blacklisted the smartphone giant and a host of other Chinese firms. (Photo by GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images)
Xiaomi Corporation is the second largest manufacturer of smartphones in the world after South Korea’s Samsung Group. Xiaomi overtook Apple, the U.S.-based technology giant and iPhone maker, to reach the number two spot on the global list of smartphone producers in July 2021.
“Xiaomi is still largely skewed toward the mass market with an average selling price around a quarter of Apple’s,” Ben Stanton, a research manager at the technology market analyst firm Canalys, told Business Insider at the time.
“Chinese smartphone players now sell the vast majority of devices in India, but their market dominance has not been ‘on the basis of free and fair competition,’ India’s junior tech minister told the Business Standard newspaper last week,” Bloomberg recalled on August 8.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched an economic initiative in 2020 called Self-Reliant India. The project aims to help India become less reliant on foreign supply chains, especially those based in neighboring China. Modi said he was inspired to start Self-Reliant India after the onset of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic in early 2020 disrupted the flow of global supply chains and exposed just how overly dependent New Delhi had become on Chinese manufacturers for its goods. News on Monday that New Delhi allegedly seeks to prevent Chinese competitors from unfairly dominating India’s cheap smartphone industry aligns with the policies of Self-Reliant India.