Foxconn, a Taiwanese electronics contract manufacturing company, emerged as the number one smartphone Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) company in India during 2018, according to a report by Counterpoint.

Foxconn led the EMS manufacturing in India with a 63 per cent share. Xiaomi and Nokia were its primary partners in 2018. HiPad, with a 12 per cent stake, ranked second among EMS companies, driven by Realme and Xiaomi, the study said.

Huawei-Honor dual brand led Flextronics to third place with a seven per cent share. Xiaomi, Realme, Huawei, Honor and Nokia were the biggest Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEMs) partners for EMS players.

Certain key brands such as Samsung, Vivo and Oppo were assembling in-house, it said.

The top three EMS companies manufactured 82 per cent of the total Indian smartphone shipments in 2018. Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) are now partnering with multiple EMS players to expand their production in India, which was not the case earlier.

This will help OEMs to produce mass volumes and reduce costs as most of them play on thin margins, the study added.

At present, more than 100 smartphone EMS players manufacture in India, pushed by the ‘Make in India’ initiative, a flagship campaign by Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government. However, very few have the scale to serve big players.

The leading EMS players are transitioning from Semi Knocked Down (SKD) to Completely Knocked Down (CKD) to save on import duties and increase localisation. The escalating China-US trade war is also pushing Chinese manufacturers to relocate some of the production to countries outside China, the study said.

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