New Delhi, Feb 25 (PTI) Smartphone has become India's top export category with overseas shipments worth USD 30 billion in 2025, Union Electronics and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Wednesday.

The minister shared the development in a social media post.

"Becoming the smartphone manufacturing factory for the world," Vaishnaw said.

The photo post titled Smartphones India's No. 1 export category displayed that there were exports worth USD 30 billion in January-December 2025.

Mobile phones worth Rs 5.5 lakh crore (USD 60 billion) were produced in the country, and exports from the segment were worth around Rs 2 lakh crore (about USD 22 billion) in 2024-25.

Electronics exports from the country have crossed Rs 4 lakh crore (USD 44 billion) in 2025 and are expected to grow when four semiconductor plants begin production this year.

Neil Shah, Co-Founder and VP for Research at market research and analysis firm Counterpoint, said Apple has become a poster child for India by expanding its manufacturing post-US tariffs on China and with exports from India reaching a record high.

"India will be touching almost 30 crore units of mobile phone production, and one in four smartphones produced in India are estimated to have been exported in 2025.

"High ASP (average selling price) or premium USA market is one of the largest export destinations driven by Apple, Samsung, and Motorola, also boosting the export value reaching highest ever," Shah said.

According to the International Data Corporation's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker for the third quarter of 2025, Apple clocked its highest-ever supplies of 50 lakh iPhones for the domestic market in a quarter.

Apple leads both premium (smartphones priced in the range of Rs 53,000-71,000 apiece) and super-premium segment (priced above Rs 71,000 apiece), which drove the growth of the country's smartphone market in the September quarter. PTI PRS TRB

Smartphone exports become top export category as manufacturing scale and premium device production boost overseas shipments. Smartphone exports have become the country's leading export category, propelled by expanded domestic production and the manufacture of premium devices for high-value overseas markets. The growth in export value is linked to large-scale, export-oriented manufacturing and is expected to be reinforced by the commencement of new semiconductor production capacity, with market observers noting premium-brand assembly and diversified export destinations as key drivers.