₹2.4 lakh crore in commitments. A cohort of mid-market manufacturers is now evaluating overseas locations.
India’s Production Linked Incentive scheme has attracted over ₹2.4 lakh crore in investment commitments through March 2026 across 14 sectors. PLI-covered industries recorded average annual export growth of approximately 10.6% between FY21 and FY25. Electronics production has risen from ₹1.9 lakh crore in 2014–15 to ₹11.3 lakh crore in 2024–25. India is now the world’s second-largest smartphone producer. These are the numbers that define the PLI narrative in most briefing documents and country reports.
The story that follows them is less discussed and considerably more relevant to investment promotion agencies.
2026 marks the transition to PLI’s successor framework. The Component Manufacturing Scheme and the Electronics Component Manufacturing Scheme now focus on sub-assemblies, value chain depth, and higher localisation thresholds. For companies that built and scaled under the original PLI windows, this creates a specific commercial dynamic: they have established production capacity, developed international export relationships, and accumulated the operational depth that makes cross-border expansion viable. The incentive to stay domestic and add another capacity tranche is diminishing. The case for a second location – closer to a key export market, inside a preferred trade corridor, or positioned to serve a specific customer cluster – is growing.
This cohort is not the IT services sector or the established pharma conglomerates that IPAs have targeted from India for over a decade. It is a newer and less visible group – mid-market manufacturers in electronics components, precision engineering, specialty chemicals, and processed food – with verifiable export track records and active expansion intent that has not yet translated into formal investment announcements. They are absent from standard IPA prospect lists. They do not respond to generic India outreach. But they are building the internal case, and a number are already working with advisors on location options.
PLI is well understood as an inbound investment story. Its outbound dimension is only beginning to emerge. IPAs that get in front of this cohort early will find the competitive field largely uncontested.
Nueconomy tracks PLI-era manufacturers and their international expansion signals through CUE.
If you are an investment promotion agency focused on identifying Indian PLI manufacturers with outbound
investment intent, we can help you reach them before the announcement is made.
hello@nueconomy.co · thenueconomy.com
Related: India Is Investing Abroad. IPAs Are Targeting the Wrong Sector.
