Overview

India is the fastest growing market for electronic products. 1965 was the start point for the electronics industry in India. The control of the industry was in the hands of the government. This was followed by developments in consumer electronics mainly in transistor radios, Black & White TV, calculators and other audio products. Colour televisions soon followed. In 1982 the government allowed thousands of colour TV sets to be imported to coincide with the broadcast of Asian Games in New Delhi. The period of rapid and continuous growth for the electronics industry was between 1984 -1990.

From 1991, the economic crisis triggered by the Gulf War was worsened by political and economic turmoil within the country. Pressure on the electronics industry continued, though growth and developments have continued with digitalisation in all sectors, and more recently the trend towards convergence of technologies.

After the software boom in mid 1990s India's focus shifted to software, while the hardware sector was treated with indifference by successive governments. Moreover the steep fall in custom tariffs made the hardware sector suddenly vulnerable to international competition. In 1997 the ITA agreement was signed at the WTO where India committed itself to total elimination of all customs duties on IT hardware by 2005.  In recent years the electronic industry is growing at a brisk pace. It is currently worth $40 Billion.  

The electronics sector is divided into 6 segments: consumer electronics, industrial electronics, computers, communication and broadcasting equipment, strategic electronics, and electronic components. Over the past five years the electronics market has seen a compounded annual growth rate of 16%. The compounded annual growth rate of consumer electronics (11.3%), industrial electronics (15.9%), computers (14.7%), communication and broadcasting equipment (37.2%), strategic electronics (20.0%), and electronic components (4.8%) is noted over the past 5 years.