Made in India: Building the backbone of loT hardware

From imported modules to home-grown chips, India's loT hardware story is evolving into one of design control, ecosystem depth, and strategic resilience.

- NIKUL SHAH

For years, India’s Internet of Things (IoT) deployments relied heavily on imported components and modules.

Companies assembled devices locally but sourced critical parts, sensors, passive components, wireless modules, and silicon from suppliers in China, Taiwan, and other countries.

That model delivered rapid adoption but left the country exposed to supply chain shocks, currency swings, and margin pressure. Today, a confluence of policy moves, capital allocation, and industry shifts is changing that calculus and nudging loT hardware toward more indigenous solutions.

On the demand side—which is already large and growing fast—market estimates show that India’s loT devices market generated about USD 2.89 billion in revenue in 2024 and is forecast to expand at a strong compound annual growth rate over the decade. The scale of this demand is creating a viable domestic market for homegrown hardware suppliers, both established electronics manufacturers and a new cohort of specialised loT module and sensor startups.

POLICY SUPPORT DRIVING

LOCAL MANUFACTURING

Government policy is the visible catalyst. Production-linked incentive (PLI) schemes have been extended to telecom and networking, and most recently to passive electronics, a crucial input for loT devices.

In March 2025, the cabinet approved a PLI package for passive components with an outlay of Rs 229.19 billion (about USD 2.68 billion), explicitly intended to boost domestic capacity for resistors, capacitors, inductors, and other components used in IoT hardware. These incentives make local production financially attractive and reduce the relative cost gap with imports.