With the Indian cell phone market growing at 14% over 2017 volumes, it is no surprise that leading global manufacturers will look at opening their factories in the country itself.

Hence whether it is a end to end Make in India model or otherwise, the government is going gung ho on the concept.

Earlier this evening, the Indian PM Narendra Modi and his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae inaugurated the world’s largest cell phone manufacturing unit in Noida.  Samsung Electronics Co, the South Korean cell phone giant is in India for good now.

This facility will help Samsung consolidate its position as the largest cell phone manufacturer.  India, with a population of over 1.3 billion has just 425 million cell phone users, as per a report.

The Prime Ministers initiative to bolster domestic manufacturing, even for foreign companies take a new jump with this build up to the national elections.  India has reportedly attracted $62 billion in foreign investments, the highest ever.  Additionally, according to Data Corp India is seeing the fastest growth in the top 20 markets.  Cheap data plans with the advent of Jio 4G by Reliance, free voice services, the demand will just surge.  Xiaomi, the Chinese cell phone major is also in talks to setup three more units in India.

Samsung, slated to ship out 120 million smartp hones per year from the Noida factory, has said that it will produce across all ranges – from the $100 cell phone to the flagship S9.  30% of the manufactured units will be for export purposes, establishing India as a favored manufacturing destination on the global platform.

As per Bloomberg Intelligence, the low average income in India leads to consumers favoring low-end smartphones that are priced at $250 or lower.  This is the main reason that manufacturers like Samsung and Xiaomi are favored in India rather than the Apple brand, which is $500 upwards.  Cisco Systems, in its market research report says that by 2021, there will be 780 million smart phone end users in India.