The government told the Parliament that Chinese smartphone manufacturers like Oppo Mobile, Vivo India, and Xiaomi have been caught avoiding taxes in India to the tune of £900 million. According to data presented in the Rajya Sabha by Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar, tax fraud totaling almost £900 million - including customs duty and GST - was discovered between 2018–19 and 2022–23.
The Minister has said that major Chinese mobile handset brands which are operating in India are Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi, Transsion, Realme and Oneplus. "These companies manufacture the mobile handset either by themselves or through contract manufacturers. Their cumulative turnover in 2021-22 was estimated to be £15 billion in India. The total direct employment generated by them in their manufacturing operations is more than 75,000. They also have sales and operational workforce of around 80,000 workers," he said.
He also said that primarily, these Chinese companies have setup their own manufacturing units. "However, they work with contract manufacturers like Bharat FIH Limited and DBG Technology (India) Private Limited and also set up Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) operations in India. The distribution of mobile handsets is mainly handled by Indian companies. Some of the Chinese companies like Oppo and Vivo have some Chinese distributors also," Chandrasekhar said.
"The company-wise list of Chinese mobile handset companies reported in evasion of customs duty along with the amount of tax evasion detected and recovered during the period 2017-18 to July 1, 2023 are Oppo Mobile, which has been found evading £508.6 million in taxes. Vivo has evaded taxes worth £292.32 million," according to the written reply by the Minister.