A few weeks ago, with a colleague from our Indian office, I spent two full days visiting a range of PCB assembly (PCBA) suppliers across Bangalore, South India. I spent time primarily in facilities in the South and West parts of the city, including the well-known Electronic City hub.
The goal? To assess the capabilities of suppliers firsthand on the ground and identify those best suited to support our electronic product builds. Here are my insights…
A Mixed but Promising Landscape
Despite the logistical challenges of navigating Bangalore’s traffic and occasionally misdirected invitations to sales offices instead of actual manufacturing sites, we uncovered several promising suppliers.
Their profiles varied—from small, hungry startups founded by experienced engineers to larger, more established players with diverse business models. Some were clearly more aligned with our quality expectations and scalability needs than others.
What stood out was the mix of capabilities:
Facilities were relatively small compared to what we see in China — they had between 1 and 3 SMT lines.
Some had the potential for dedicated assembly zones for client-specific projects.
A few demonstrated strong systems thinking and process controls, while others were more basic in setup or practices.
Industry Observations
Bangalore’s electronics manufacturing ecosystem is not new, but it’s also not at the scale or automation level seen in areas like Shenzhen. That said, there’s a strong base of experienced engineers and technicians—many of whom service high-reliability sectors like defense (specifically the Indian navy) and aerospace.
We noted some industry-wide trends:
Military and aerospace customers tend to dominate, with mandates to maximize local content.
Avoidance of Chinese manufacturing equipment is near-universal, though most components going into productions still come from China.
Consumer goods production is limited but expected to grow in the coming years.
Process & Quality Insights
The suppliers varied widely in process precision and equipment. The more capable facilities had the full suite: solder printers, SPI, pick & place machines, AOI, reflow ovens, and X-ray test systems. However, automation integration was inconsistent. Many lines weren’t connected from start to finish and relied heavily on manual inspections.
We were surprised to see widespread use of lead-based solder paste, often due to military/aerospace specs and the absence of RoHS requirements for certain markets. Only one newer supplier used exclusively lead-free paste. Most others claimed tight segregation controls, though the absence of random XRF testing and the high potential for contamination raised concerns.
Other notable observations:
SMT rooms were usually humidity and temperature-controlled but lacked full cleanroom standards (in other words, no measures to control dust).
Board-level traceability was only present in the more sophisticated facilities.
Manual soldering was relatively low-tech, with limited use of jigs or post-solder ultrasound cleaning.
Power reliability is a challenge—frequent micro-cuts and voltage fluctuations are common, and backup systems like batteries were used only by 1 or 2 companies. This may result in defects or reliability issues.
Import/Export Realities
India’s import duties on PCBs and some components—particularly those from China—are substantial (e.g., a 30% duty on China-made boards). However, there are workarounds for companies that end up exporting the subassemblies or the products. Most PCBA suppliers are registered under India’s Customs GMR scheme, allowing duties to be refunded if the final product is exported.
This flexibility also extends to the suppliers’ business models:
Most are open to turnkey services (i.e. they source & purchase components), job work (i.e. they are provided components and get paid only for the work), or hybrid models.
Customs clearance for parts is relatively fast—as little as 2–3 days—provided all documentation is flawless.
Will India’s role be more prominent amid the US/China trade war?
As the U.S.-China trade tensions escalate, India is increasingly viewed as a potential alternative for manufacturing and supply chain diversification. The Wall Street Journal highlights that India is “emerging as a strategic supplier” in industries ranging from semiconductors to electronics assembly.
Reduced tariffs alone provide quite the advantage:
For the moment, most Indian goods face only the 10% tariff Trump has imposed globally, and certain exempted electronics such as iPhones have no tariff. The tariff on most Chinese goods is 145% while those electronics items are subject to a 20% rate.
Apple currently produces around 20% of its iPhones in India, and plans to increase that.
Smartphones offer an example of what India can do when it puts its mind to it. A decade ago, when India started focusing on building phones, its annual mobile-phone exports were only about $250 million. Now the figure is more than $22 billion, with Apple accounting for about three-quarters of that.
And a wider internal supply chain to reduce dependence on Chinese materials and components appears to be forming, which can only spell good news:
Officials say a network of suppliers is growing up to feed the final assembly. New York state-based Corning, which has long made scratchproof glass for Apple phones, plans to start production in Tamil Nadu this year.
However, it’s unclear how fast India can adjust to capitalize on the USA moving away from China. It’s fair to say that smaller countries have outpaced it thus far:
Global high-tech firms and retailers say India is a harder place to do business than China or Vietnam, owing to government red tape, restive labor groups and an often-punitive approach to compliance and taxation. Vietnam, a country of 100 million people, exports $50 billion more in goods to the U.S. than India, whose population is 1.4 billion.
Overall, these developments align with observations from Bangalore’s PCBA landscape, where a mix of capabilities and a growing ecosystem suggest that India is positioning itself as a viable manufacturing alternative amid global trade realignments.
Final Thoughts
My trip confirmed that while Bangalore is not a replacement for Shenzhen in terms of scale or automation (yet), it offers a capable and growing ecosystem for PCBA manufacturing.
That was an encouraging finding, as we are setting a final assembly workshop for electronic products to be transferred from China.
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