India's Electronics Exports Poised to Surpass Petroleum Products
India is rapidly transforming its export profile as electronics exports, propelled by the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme and Apple’s manufacturing shift, approach and are on track to surpass petroleum products as the country’s second-largest export category. This shift is supported by growing investments and government initiatives, signaling India's emergence as a global electronics manufacturing hub with significant economic and job growth potential.
India’s export sector is undergoing a significant change, with electronics exports growing swiftly due to the PLI scheme and strategic manufacturing decisions by major companies like Apple, which has made India its secondary manufacturing hub for iPhones. In the fiscal year 2025, the export gap between petroleum products and electronics has shrunk dramatically from $73.9 billion to approximately $24.7 billion, with projections indicating this gap will narrow further. Electronics exports, powered in part by smartphone production and dominated by Apple’s $10 billion in iPhone exports in the first half of the year, now constitute a major share of India's total exports. Although petroleum products remain the second-largest export currently, their share is forecast to decline due to global geopolitical factors such as U.S. sanctions on Russian crude that affect Indian refiners. Industry experts anticipate that by fiscal year 2028, electronics could become India's second-largest export category, trailing only engineering goods. This transformation is key to positioning India as a global hub for electronics manufacturing, attracting significant investment and creating jobs in the process, thus driving robust economic growth and enhancing India's export diversity and resilience.
