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Curriculum India's Smartphone Economy

India's Smartphone Economy

How India became the world's second largest smartphone market and a major phone maker: cheap phones and cheap data, Chinese brands, the rise and fall of Indian brands, the PLI scheme, Apple's iPhone shift to India, component making, phone exports, pricing and EMIs, the used and feature phone market, and a recap.

  1. The World's Second Largest Phone Market How India became the world's second largest smartphone market after China, with hundreds of millions of users, and how cheap phones and data drove adoption. 📄 Read-aloud
  2. Chinese Brands in India How Chinese brands like Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo and Realme came to dominate India's phone market through value pricing and offline retail, and later faced tax and legal scrutiny. 📄 Read-aloud
  3. The Rise and Fall of Indian Phone Brands How Indian brands like Micromax, Lava and Karbonn led the market around 2014-15, why Chinese rivals overtook them, and attempts at a comeback. 📄 Read-aloud
  4. The Mobile PLI Scheme How India's Production Linked Incentive scheme for mobile phones launched in 2020 paid incentives on incremental sales, attracting Apple suppliers and Samsung. 📄 Read-aloud
  5. Apple's iPhone Shift to India How Apple moved a growing share of iPhone production to India to diversify from China, with Tata Electronics becoming the first Indian iPhone maker, and India's rise as an iPhone export base. 📄 Read-aloud
  6. The Components Challenge Why India mostly assembles phones from imported components, what makes up a phone's value, and the 2025 Electronics Component Manufacturing Scheme. 📄 Read-aloud
  7. India's Smartphone Economy: Checkpoint 1 Quick checkpoint - five questions on India's phone market, Chinese brands, Indian brands, PLI and Apple. 5 questions
  8. Phones as India's Top Electronics Export How smartphones became one of India's largest exports, reaching tens of billions of dollars, and the risks of US tariffs and concentration on Apple. 📄 Read-aloud
  9. Phone Pricing, EMIs and Online Sales How Indians buy phones through EMIs and festival sales, the split between online and offline channels, and why price bands matter for brands. 📄 Read-aloud
  10. Feature Phones and the Next Users Why many Indians still use basic feature phones, JioPhone's cheap 4G feature phone, UPI 123PAY for feature phones, and how to bring the next users online. 📄 Read-aloud
  11. Noida's Phone Factories How Noida in Uttar Pradesh became a phone manufacturing hub, with Samsung's large factory opened in 2018, and the role of Dixon and other contract makers. 📄 Read-aloud
  12. Old Phones and E-Waste What happens to India's old phones, how informal recyclers extract metals, and extended producer responsibility rules for phone makers. 📄 Read-aloud
  13. Smartphones: Recap A recap of India's smartphone market and manufacturing. 📄 Read-aloud

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