PM Modi’s vision for Digital India is now bearing fruit

Ever Since PM Modi came to the power with massive mandates from the people of the country, he has focused on expediting India’s modernisation. His visionary approach translated into the launch of the Digital India campaign. The campaign has started to bear fruit now.

Highest ever smartphone shipments

India registered its highest ever shipment of smartphones in 2021. A total of 169 million smartphones were shipped into India, which is 11 percent increase over total shipment in 2020. In 2020, we had shipped a total of 152 million smartphones. The data has been collated by Counterpoint Research, a market research company involved in collecting information about smartphones.

Record growth is especially commendable; since it came in the year when supply chain disruptions in the wake of covid-19 led to abnormal price hikes. In spite of phones being available at higher rates, Indians were enthusiastic about 5G which became a key factor of 11 percent growth.

Indians are enthusiastic about 5G

In fact, out of 169 million smartphones, about 28.73 million of them were 5G smartphones. 5G smartphones registered 600 percent growth compared to 2020. Another set of stats, which speaks volumes about India’s consumer spending, is the increase in shipment of expensive smartphones.

Smart Phones costing under Rs 10,000 accounted for 30 percent of total shipments. Rs 10,000-Rs 20,000 segments contributed to 47 percent of total shipments, which is 8 percent increase over the previous year. Smartphones in the range of Rs 20,000 and above consisted of 13 percent of total shipment, a massive 95 percent increase over the previous year.

Outlining India’s potential for robust growth, research pointed out, “Intense competition among OEMs, availability of cheaper 5G chipsets and declining prices of 5G devices will enable brands to push more 5G devices into the market. The price of entry-level 5G devices has come down by 40 per cent in the last six months. The increase in affordability of 5G devices has been a key reason for high 5G Smartphone adoption,”

Digital India initiative-A snapshot

The massive Smartphone sales come as a vindication for PM Modi’s push towards modernising India. In order to weed out corruption, the Union government decided to leverage technology. Keeping this aim in mind, PM Modi launched the Digital India initiative in 2015. The initiative was aimed at making government services affordable to people located in the last mile of the country. In its full-fledged inception, the initiative was aimed to cut across bureaucratic barriers.

Everything, which government provides to people was modernized. Services like National e-Governance Plan, MyGov.in, UMANG (Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance), Digilocker, e-education, e-health, e-sign, e-shopping started to take shape in the country.

Initially, Indian people were slow to adapt to the new changes. However, after Demonetisation, a rigorous need for digital payment worked as a soft push for people not being able to adapt to changing needs of the modern era. Up until, November 2021, India’s digital transaction had registered a growth of 1900 percent compared to 2014, when PM Modi came to the power.

Internet to the last mile

In 2020, the Modi government decided to augment internet penetration in the country. During his Independence Day speech in 2020, PM Modi had highlighted that technology will play a big role in developing the country and digitally connecting every citizen. He had remarked that in the upcoming 1000 days nearly 6 lakh Indian villages will be connected with optical fibre.

India is registering record growth in Smartphone exports due to PLI

Moreover, other than providing digital infrastructure to the villages, the Union government is also incentivizing smartphones production in the country. The government has allocated Rs 41,000 crores for the PLI scheme in smartphones. The scheme became an instant hit and in 2021, India’s mobile phone registered 250 per cent growth.

Currently, Samsung’s biggest mobile manufacturing plant is located in the Noida region of Uttar Pradesh. Currently, 16 companies are manufacturing their mobile phones in India. Modi government has set a target of exporting phones worth $100 billion over the next five years. In June 2021, the government extended the PLI scheme for one more year.

Currently, China is witnessing its biggest downfall in the last 4-decades. Companies are running away from it in the wake of Xi Jinping’s crackdown on the tech sector. Simultaneously, India is registering massive numbers in tech sector itself. It’s not hard to guess that trade winds are flowing towards India.