In late 2017 Reuters had reported that Apple was "in talks with Indian officials for months, seeking "pre-requisites," government tax breaks and incentives, for expanding its operations in one of the world's fastest-growing smartphone markets."

The talks appeared to be continually hitting a wall of opposition no matter how many times Apple's CEO met with India's Prime Minister Modi. In the end, if you were holding your breath for the skies to open with the Indian government showering Apple with special grants to open an iPhone plant in their country, think again.

Yesterday Samsung Electronics unveiled what it calls the world's biggest mobile phone manufacturing plant in India. Prime minister of India Shri Narendra Modi presided over the inauguration of the factory in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. 

In addition, Samsung India also launched its "Make for the World" initiative, whereby it aims to export handsets produced in India to overseas markets.

With this new facility, Samsung will double its current capacity for mobile phones in Noida from 68 million units a year to 120 million units a year, in a phase-wise expansion that will be completed by 2020.

Samsung said it has been manufacturing mobile phones in India since 2007, claiming it is the "only brand that is truly made in India."

"Our Noida factory, the world's largest mobile factory, is a symbol of Samsung's strong commitment to India, and a shining example of the success of the government's 'Make in India' program. Samsung is a long-term partner of India. We 'Make in India', 'Make for India' and now, we will 'Make for the World'. We are aligned with government policies and will continue to seek their support to achieve our dream of making India a global export hub for mobile phones," HC Hong, CEO of Samsung India, said.

Samsung said it continues to provide cutting edge technology and enriching experiences to Indian consumers with its mobile phones made at the Noida plant, supported by a large ecosystem of suppliers in the Delhi-National Capital Region and partners across the country. All Samsung mobile phones, including the flagship Galaxy S9, S9+ and Galaxy Note8, are made at the Noida plant.

The announcement sounded like a loud slap in Apple's face, courtesy of Samsung with President Modi eating it all up. Currently Apple's holds an anemic 2% market share in India and the Wistron plant is only making older iPhones.

In contrast, Samsung was outsmarting and outclassing Apple on every level by wanting to make the very best phones for every segment of the Indian population instead of only for the elites. Apple wants to slowly import their ecosystem from China while Samsung is willing to build a local Indian centric ecosystem. Samsung's message was hitting all of the chords that the Indian government wanted to hear.

Samsung Electronics completed the factory by investing about 800 billion won. The company began to build the factory in June 2017 to expand its mobile phone production capacity. The completion of the factory ramped up the size of the Noida factory from 120,000 square meters to 240,000 square meters. The factory's monthly production of mobile phones will increase from five million units to 10 million units and its monthly refrigerator production from 100,000 units to 200,000 units.

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