Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1538999
12 SMT007 MAGAZINE I SEPTEMBER 2025 "We had a good enough show, we'll pay for our- selves," and they're coming back. You can build these things when you're trying to help companies do business. The projections are for Indian cellphone manu- facturing for export to grow tenfold in the next five years. This market seems to have a great deal of growth potential. Is this driven by China Plus One or other factors? It may be partly China Plus One, but I think it's Trump 2.0. Apple shifted huge amounts of manu- facturing (through Foxconn) to minimize its China tariff exposure; India has also been increasing tar- iffs on phone manufacturing, which has also driven the migrations. Are foreign companies driving investment in India? Foreign companies are investing in India. The mobile phone, laptop, and white goods manufacturing markets are growing in India. There is also a semi- conductor infrastructure investment underway. All this investment requires an increase in employees' capabilities. This upgrade in manu- facturing needs leads to training people in a more advanced manufacturing environment. More edu- cated and experienced staff can continue to advance the industry. The Association is working to provide additional workforce education to sup- port this trend. By the way, India consumes a lot of phones domestically, but we are finding interest in white goods: washing machines, refrigerators, and such. We're working to determine how we can increase relevancy in that area. India is huge in software, and so our design activities will be very strong in the future. We already have a good design group and a couple of representatives participating in the global design team. We can grow in the design activity as well. Dave, how does India want to be perceived in the next 10 years regarding electronics manufacturing? India wants to be more self-sufficient, and that's been a problem in cer- tain areas. They've done amazing things— they sent spacecraft to Mars—but their PCB industry is at a technol- ogy disadvantage. Com- ponent manufacturing is not big in India, so most components come from countries they consider competitors. There's no laminate manufac- turer in-country. Ventec is now opening in Thai- land, but India needs a laminate manufacturer because all the laminate they use is imported. With some pockets of improvement and dedi- cated investment, India could improve quickly. From the component side, nearly every coun- try is chasing the golden goose, which is semicon- ductors. India is no different from the U.S.; a mul- tiple-prong effort is underway with foundry, multi- ple fabs, and multiple OSATs. It will be an exciting decade for electronics in India. Dave, our conversations are always insightful. Thank you. You're welcome. SMT007