India allows Apple, Dell, Lenovo to import laptops, tablets

Apple, Dell, HP, Samsung and Lenovo are among 110 firms authorised by India to import laptops, tablets and personal computers under a new system aimed at monitoring shipments, two government sources said. Acer, Xiaomi, IBM and Asus have also been issued import authorisations, the two sources said, under India’s new “import management system” effective from Wednesday.

India announced the new system for laptops, tablets and personal computers last month after it rolled back an earlier plan to impose a licensing regime, following criticism from the industry and Washington. Companies must register the quantity and value of imports on a portal, with an authorisation valid until September 2024.

According to S. Krishnan, a top bureaucrat in the electronics and information technology ministry, the purpose of the new “import management system” is “to ensure that all this provides us with the kind of data and information we need to make sure that we have a completely trusted digital system.” It came as a solution to the problem that the government wanted to solve with the licensing regime. That plan would have allowed the government to hold up or reject imports of laptops and tablets in India.

The new system will give relief to OEMs such as Apple, Dell, Lenovo, HP, and Samsung, which import laptop and tablet devices into India in bulk. Although some of these companies are trying to manufacture laptops and tablets in India to avoid additional tax levies from the Indian government, the current environment for manufacturing of such devices in India is not on par with their global counterparts.

Laptops, tablets, and personal computers account for roughly 1.5 percent of India’s total annual imports, and half of them come from China, the government data has revealed. The biggest importers of their laptops, tablets, and personal computer devices are Apple and Dell.

India’s federal trade ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The sources declined to be named as details of the authorisations have not yet been made public.

— Written with inputs from Reuters