After Apple, India’s smartphone manufacturing boom enters new phase with Vivo JV

Local partnerships such as the Dixon-Vivo venture offer Chinese brands a more stable operating model, while aligning with India’s push for greater local participation in electronics manufacturing, said Tarun Pathak, research director at Counterpoint Research.

“The approval of this joint venture creates a win-win for both players,” Pathak told TechCrunch. He added that the majority-Indian-owned structure provides Vivo with greater policy alignment while giving Dixon the scale to deepen local value addition and pursue exports.

Vivo has manufactured and exported smartphones from India for years, but the approved venture marks a shift toward a majority Indian-owned manufacturing structure as the market leader deepens its footprint in the world’s second-largest smartphone market. The Chinese smartphone vendor retained the top spot in India’s smartphone market with a 23% shipment share in Q1, per Counterpoint.

For Dixon, India’s largest electronics manufacturing services company, the venture could add annualized manufacturing volumes of about 20 million to 22 million smartphones, based on Vivo’s current sales, according to comments by Managing Director Atul Lall during the company’s May earnings call. That’s a meaningful volume bump for a public company whose growth increasingly hinges on winning exactly these kinds of manufacturing contracts.

Dixon already manufactures smartphones for Xiaomi, suggesting the Vivo venture builds on an expanding role as a manufacturing partner for both global and Chinese smartphone brands in India, and reinforces its position as one of the more reliable bets in India’s electronics build-out.