Challenges faced by the market Domestic manufacturing of television is expected to be threatened by imports from countries with whom India has free trade agreements, including the countries in the ASEAN region. Reportedly, online-focused brands such as BPL, TCL, and Sanyo are expected to embrace the open-cell route for local production. After all, while the import duty on open cell TV panels, which involve manufacturing right at the component stage, stood at a mere 5%, imported LED TV panels cost three times as much. The growing number of manufacturers shifting the production unit is turning out to be favorable for the overall market in terms of both pricing as well as convenience. The duty on import of completely built television sets is 20%, making imports from China, Thailand and Malaysia unviable. This is not all, the government is also looking to expand the production of open cell, specifically for large-sized TVs as these are still imported. The recent past has seen brands like Xiaomi, TCL, Skyworth, BPL and Thomson have started local production of television components.
Meanwhile, Chinese brands are hopeful regarding the expected increase on custom duties for completely built units in 2019-20 to make the manufacturing investment viable in the country. All major stakeholders in the television manufacturing industry in India believes that the government should do away with import duties on open cell panels entirely to help India take on cheap imports from countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia, among other and enhance the sustainability of the market.The "Make in India" initiative of the Indian government is turning out to be a game changer for the manufacturing sector in the country, and the manufacturing of television is benefiting extensively from it. This comes as a major win for the Indian government;s "Make in India" program as even until recently, these brands were importing television for sale in the country.
Not only the smaller players of the television market in India , even the bigger players have ramped up their production volumes following the restructuring of the custom duty by the government. Changes taking place under the "Make in India" program As a part of the "Make in India" program, the government reduced the custom duty on TV panels by 50%, which has resulted in the cost of assembling of LED TV sets coming down from close to 70% to 5%. Prior to this initiative, the customs duty on imported LCD and LED TV panels and import duty on TV sets had both been injection pallet mould doubled.
Despite the challenges, government initiatives, especially the "Make in India" program, are expected to drive the market significantly in the coming years. For example, market leader Samsung is currently pondering on reducing local manufacturing in India and looking to import TVs from Vietnam, with which India has an FTA, at least for the large-screen models.. All these moves intended to boost domestic manufacturing are already paying off. Hence, companies like Sony and LG have started assembling TV panels in India as well as manufacturing printed circuit boards (PCB) and mould unlike just assembling imported modules in the yester years
