Samsung to Avail PLI Scheme for 4G, 5G Gear Manufacturing

Samsung Electronics has expressed interest to participate in the second phase of the Indian Government’s Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for manufacturing 4G and 5G telecom gear in India. For this PLI scheme, the Government had earmarked a sum of Rs. 12,195 crore to be spent over 5 years from 2021. While phase 1 of the scheme took off in April 2021, phase 2 of the scheme will commence in 2022.

Samsung is in talks with Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel for 4G expansion and 5G supply contracts. The company will manufacture 4G and 5G gear in its Uttar Pradesh facility if it avails the PLI scheme. This scheme covers manufacturing of core and transmission equipment, 4G/5G Radio Access Network (RAN) and wireless equipment, Customer Premises Equipment (CPE), Internet of things (IoT) access devices, switches, routers etc.

Samsung had not participated in phase one of the PLI scheme to manufacture networking equipment in 2021, as it deemed it unviable to do so at that time for its only Indian telecom client, Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited.