Mobile PLI 2.0 Is Coming in May — Here's Who's Best Positioned to Win Round Two
The government is preparing to roll out Mobile PLI 2.0 with an outlay of over $5 billion, targeting a May 2026 launch, per reports this week. The first round of the Production Linked Incentive scheme for mobile phones turned India from a smartphone importer into a near-self-sufficient producer — mobile exports alone crossed Rs 900 billion in FY23. Round two is expected to push the policy deeper into components and higher-value assembly, where India still runs a large import bill.
The companies that won Round One of mobile PLI are now sitting on scaled capacity, existing global customer relationships, and years of filing-disclosed capex — the exact ingredients needed to bid into Round Two. Retail investors eyeing this theme should look first at who is already disclosing mobile revenue, not who might enter.
Dixon Technologies: The anchor position
Dixon is the clearest beneficiary and the one with the most filing evidence. Per Dixon's FY24 disclosures, the "Mobile Phones, EMS & Others" segment generated revenue of Rs 10,919 crore for FY 2023-24, with a 109% YoY growth rate in the mobile segment. Mobile phones alone accounted for 62% of revenue and 51% of operating profit in FY24 — up from 29% of revenue in FY22. Dixon describes itself in its annual report as the "Fastest growing EMS Company by Revenue" with a 60% share of the Indian mobile EMS market and a 59% ROCE.
The production capacity disclosed in the annual report is meaningful: 40 million feature phones annually and 50 million smart phones annually. Dixon's filings note it was the "first company to get disbursement under PLI Scheme in the segment." Its mobile customer list, per the FY24 board report, includes Motorola, Nokia, Reliance, Xiaomi, and Airtel.
The mobile arm sits inside Padget Electronics Private Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary that the filings describe as engaged in "manufacturing, selling, exporting, repairing or dealing in mobile phones of all kinds and related components, parts, spares, devices and accessories" with "a backward integration framework." Dixon has also been acquiring Ismartu India Private Limited to expand this footprint. If Mobile PLI 2.0 pushes incentives deeper into PCBAs and sub-components, Padget's backward-integration build-out is the single most mapped-out answer in the listed universe.
Optiemus Infracom: The pure-play hearable-and-wearable angle
Optiemus is the second company that has explicitly linked itself to the mobile PLI scheme in its filings. Per its FY25 annual report, the company's standalone operations "comprise of only one segment viz. Telecommunication and allied products." Both of its key manufacturing subsidiaries — Optiemus Electronics Limited (OEL) and GDN Enterprises Private Limited — "have been selected under the PLI Scheme launched by the Ministry," the filing states.
Importantly, Optiemus explicitly discloses that it manufactures in the "mobile, hearable and wearable" category and that "the PLI and PMP Schemes are expected to drive India's transformation into a global manufacturing hub." The FY25 filing also flags that "concessions in customs duty will be given by the Government to certain consumer electronic devices to promote manufacturing across wearables, hearables and specific mobile phone components." That is basically the structure Mobile PLI 2.0 is rumoured to take.
Unlike Dixon, Optiemus is still building scale, so earnings operating leverage on any PLI expansion would be higher in percentage terms — and the downside is also larger if disbursements slip.
The second-order winners: Component and EMS players
The richer version of this thesis is that Mobile PLI 2.0 is more about components than assembly. India already assembles phones; it still imports the chips, PCBs, displays, and camera modules that go inside them. That shifts the beneficiary set.
- Kaynes Technology (KAYNES): A Capital Goods–classified EMS company with 397 disclosures. Its filings detail expansion into higher-value electronics manufacturing, and the company has an OSAT semiconductor build-out already underway. Any components-focused PLI expansion maps directly to its capex plan.
- Cyient DLM (CYIENTDLM): Filings highlight exposure to "the surge in wearable technology, 5G technology development" — the exact scope Mobile PLI 2.0 is rumoured to cover.
- Amber Enterprises (AMBER): Traditionally a room-AC manufacturer, but its recent filings describe an active pivot into PCB and EMS. Amber is not in the mobile flow today, but it has the factory footprint and working capital discipline to bid into a components PLI.
- EPACK Durable (EPACK): Its FY24 annual report calls the PLI scheme "a pivotal driver in EPACK Durable Limited's growth" — again consumer durables today, EMS component capability tomorrow.
What retail investors should do
Treat the May Mobile PLI 2.0 announcement as a "show me the terms" event rather than a pre-trade. Dixon is already priced as the incumbent winner, so re-rating from here needs either a components-heavy scheme (which favours Padget's backward-integration capex) or a large new global brand addition disclosed in an upcoming quarterly. Optiemus has the narrative and the PLI selection but needs to show revenue traction before a re-rating. Kaynes, Cyient DLM, Amber, and EPACK are lower-probability, higher-convexity bets — watch for the actual PLI 2.0 eligibility list when it drops, and buy only the names that get explicitly approved.
The cleanest setup is this: if the scheme covers components, Dixon's Padget and the component-EMS names lead. If the scheme is purely another round of assembly incentives, Dixon and Optiemus remain the only two with mobile-specific filing disclosure.
Data sourced from company filings on NSE via Xaro.