Twelve years after it was launched with the promise of turning India into a global manufacturing hub, Make in India has delivered its most visible gains in sectors that were once symbols of dependence: mobile phones, electronics and defence. What began in 2014 as a sweeping industrial ambition has, by the government's own account, become a policy architecture spanning 27 sectors and anchored by production-linked incentives that have helped convert policy intent into output, exports and investment.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday marked the anniversary by describing Make in India as a programme focused on creating the infrastructure, enterprise and innovation India needs to grow and prosper. In a post on X, he shared a video and wrote that the initiative is about building the conditions for India to "grow and prosper," tagging the post #12YearsOfMakeInIndia. In another post, he pointed to more production, more investment and more exports as evidence of a transformation now visible across sectors.
The numbers behind that claim are substantial. According to government data, the Production Linked Incentive schemes have generated production and sales of about Rs 23.8 lakh crore, exports of over Rs 15.5 lakh crore and investments of around Rs 2.58 lakh crore. For a policy that was initially viewed by many as a slogan-heavy industrial campaign, the PLI framework has become its most concrete lever, tying incentives to actual manufacturing output rather than promises on paper.
Nowhere is that shift more visible than in electronics and mobile phones. Electronics production has risen nearly sevenfold, from Rs 1.9 lakh crore in 2014-15 to Rs 13.11 lakh crore in 2025-26. Mobile phone production has expanded even more dramatically, climbing roughly 33 times from Rs 18,000 crore to Rs 6.27 lakh crore. India is now the world's second-largest mobile phone manufacturer by volume, and government data says 99.2% of mobile phones used in the country are made domestically. That marks a striking reversal for a market that once relied overwhelmingly on imports for even basic handsets.
The defence sector has undergone a similarly sharp transformation. Defence exports have grown about 55 times, from nearly Rs 690 crore in 2014 to over Rs 38,400 crore. Indigenous defence production reached a record Rs 1.78 lakh crore in FY 2025-26, up from Rs 46,429 crore in 2014-15. The shift is important not only for trade balances but for strategic autonomy, as India has sought to reduce dependence on foreign suppliers while building a domestic industrial base capable of serving both military and export markets.
The automobile sector has also benefited from the broader manufacturing push. Vehicle production reached 31.03 million units in 2024-25, up 33% from 2014-15, underscoring how manufacturing growth has extended beyond headline sectors into established industrial categories as well.
Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal framed the initiative's deeper significance as a change in mindset as much as in output. India, he said, has moved from manufacturing mainly for its domestic market to producing for global markets. He described the most important outcome as a shift in confidence among founders, manufacturers, innovators and exporters: "India can make, India can innovate, and India can compete with the world."
That confidence is now part of the policy story. Make in India has helped reposition India not just as a consumer market, but as a location for production, design and export-oriented manufacturing. It has also given the government a framework to court investment in sectors ranging from electronics to defence, while encouraging firms to localise production and expand capacity.
Yet the initiative's thirteenth year begins with a familiar challenge: scale versus depth. The original ambition was to raise manufacturing to about a quarter of GDP, a threshold India has still not reached. The gains in phones, defence and PLI-linked exports are real, but much of the growth has been strongest where assembly and final-stage production can be ramped up relatively quickly. The harder task now is to build domestic capability deeper in the supply chain, especially in semiconductors, components and advanced manufacturing.
That next phase will determine whether Make in India remains a successful industrial campaign or becomes the foundation for something larger: a manufacturing ecosystem that does not merely assemble for India and the world, but designs, sources and innovates at scale within India itself.