Date: 15/02/2013

Latest update on India’s electronics and semiconductor industry trends in 2013

At this year’s Vision Summit of ISA, which is now renamed as India Electronics and Semiconductor Association (IESA), the hot subject is growing demand of electronics in India. This event is attended by senior executives from global companies as well as local companies who earn much of the revenue from off shore market. Officials from Government utilize this platform to convey latest update on policies and frame works.

It’s a place where business honchos in Electronics System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) get networked. What matters finally is business, such as how to increase sales revenue, the strategies for the future? It more about business between rest of the world and India in high tech electronics and IC business.

There is no smart executive who is not aware of the Billions of $s of the market India offers. Indian middle class is now world class both by size and preferences. And the services industry is best in the world for the smart businesses that wanto have virtual flexible teams to fill the gap during demand upsurge.

Here we provide some of the latest trends in ESDM sector for the year 2013:

Union Government is now providing the best ever policy framework for ESDM industry. The state Governments are taking up them further with innovative state policies. Karnataka is ahead in this. Huge manufacturing infrastructure is coming up in many states in the form of clusters. Government is actively involved in training and funding talents in electronics and semiconductor industry.

India is a continue to be emerging market both for low cost electronics devices and high-end expensive gadgets.

Global companies are investing more in India either by expanding or opening new offices
There is hardly any major semiconductor company which does not get its chips designed by Indian team support.
The competition is stiffer in design service where the cost pressure is high.
There is less growth for Indian product companies, except companies like Tejas Networks.
The number of local companies in the product design domain are decreasing or moving over to services business. If there is one, they are getting acquired by global companies. Just a week back Cadence has acquired Cosmic Circuits.
We estimate very less number patents filed by Indian local companies compared to the potential they have in innovation.
Innovation is offered as service rather than a product.
The skills and capabilities of Indian engineers is now world class and even better.
Infrastructure development is gaining priority and is comparatively better. Lot more need to be improved in power, water and road safety.
Goods/logistics movement is faster and smoother with rising air network.
College and universities continue to produce fresh talent

Bulk of India’s electronics engineering skill-set strength still is in programming, it can be HDL, embedded systems software in C/C++, or any such code creation and verification. There are exceptions but they only constitute not more than 20% of total engineering skill strength available in India. The reason is, it is easy to get a job in software programming rather than product development. The learning effort is also less to become a coder.

Finally semiconductor is not just in electronics, is going to be everywhere. IESA Vision Summit is getting concluded today, we will update you with in-depth analysis in our next article.
Author: Srinivasa Reddy N