India’s smartphone market has recorded its weakest first-quarter performance in six years, with shipments declining 3% year-on-year (YoY) in January–March 2026, as rising handset prices, supply-side cost pressures, subdued consumer demand has weighed on volumes, according to Counterpoint Research.

The report, released by the global market research firm added that nearly one-third of model launches were advanced to Q1 to offset rising component costs, as OEMs tried to mitigate further BOM (Bill of Materials) inflation. This is mainly due to memory prices and currency fluctuations.

India’s electronics story may finally be turning a corner. For years, the country assembled finished products at scale while relying heavily on imported components, largely from China. That imbalance is now beginning to shift in a way few had anticipated. A surge in exports of electronic components from India to China points to the early stages of a structural reversal. What was once a one-way supply chain -- from China to India -- has started turning into a two-way street.

A surprising reversal led by Apple’s ecosystem

The most striking evidence of this shift comes from Apple’s manufacturing ecosystem in India. India-based vendors supplying to Apple have exported a record $2.5 billion worth of components and sub-assemblies to China in FY26 so far, with projections suggesting this could reach $3.5 billion by the end of the year, ET reported, citing information from officials and industry executives, though Apple did not comment. This is a dramatic jump from just $920 million in FY25 and almost negligible levels before that.

The Ministry of Commerce and Industry has introduced a set of reforms to improve the functioning of Norms Committees under the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), aimed at faster disposal of Advance Authorisation applications and easing process for exporters.

In an official statement, the ministry stated that the move comes as part of the government's broader push to enhance ease of doing business and reduce delays in approvals under export-linked schemes.

The Reserve Bank of India has opened an exclusive foreign exchange window for supplying dollars to state-run refiners, easing pressure on the spot exchange rate, currency analysts, bankers and traders told ET. It’s likely routed through state-run lenders such as the State Bank of India, they said.

The central bank has used this strategy previously to ease pressure on the rupee--during the socalled taper tantrum of 2013, the Russian-Ukraine war and on occasions when demand from oil companies added to pressure on the currency.

India is expected to become the world’s third-largest economy by 2031, according to the latest International Monetary Fund (IMF) data, even as it is projected to rank fourth by 2027. Despite slipping to sixth place in 2025 due to a stronger dollar and GDP base year revision, it remains among the fastest-growing major economies. Anoushka Sawhney takes a look:

Over 69.5% of rural households expect their income to increase in the next financial year, according to a bi-monthly survey conducted by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) in March.

This represents the lowest level of people expecting their income to rise in the coming year since the survey titled ‘Rural Economic Conditions and Sentiments’ commenced, in September 2024. A year ago, 72.2% of households expected their income to rise, while in November 2025, 75.9% households, the highest in the series, expected their income to rise.

Despite being hit by the high US tariff last year, India’s marine products exports increased 14% year-on-year to a record $8.43 billion last fiscal, thanks to a surge in shipments to several new markets such as Europe and Southeast Asia, an official said.

“Initially under pressure from a higher tariff by the US, our biggest export destination, shipments to Europe, China, Vietnam and Russia increased sharply last fiscal thus leading to a sharp spike in exports,” KN Raghavan, Secretary General, Seafood Exporters Association of India (SEAI) told FE.

India and China held their first bilateral consultations on the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in New Delhi on April 16-17, agreeing to strengthen cooperation on security, trade and regional connectivity.

The two sides exchanged views on implementing SCO leaders' decisions and the future course of the organisation. They agreed to continue and deepen consultations on SCO-related issues, officials said.

The Centre’s dividend receipts from central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) have exceeded the budget target by 10.5% to Rs 78,438 crore in FY26, the highest-ever annual receipt.

In the revised estimates for FY26, the government pegged CPSE dividend receipts at rs 71,000 crore, marginally higher than the budget estimate of Rs 69,000 crore, signalling confidence in sustained profitability across key public sector undertakings.

India's current account deficit (CAD) is likely to touch 2 per cent of GDP under higher oil price scenarios, according to a report by Crisil.

The report stated that in its base case scenario, assuming exports benefit from US tariff relaxations and crude oil prices average between USD 75-80 per barrel, the CAD is expected to widen to 1.5 per cent of GDP in fiscal 2027, compared to a projected 0.8 per cent in fiscal 2026.

There has been no impact on client repayments because of the Middle East conflict, a top official from the EXIM Bank of India has said.

Indian companies' presence in the Middle East is concentrated in the construction or infrastructure sector, and their business may have suffered in the last month due to the challenging situations, its managing director and chief executive, Harsha Bangari, said.

The US-Israel war with Iran and the resultant blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway, caused India’s merchandise exports to fall 7.4% year-on-year to $38.92 billion in March; shipments to the West Asian region dropped by 58%. With imports also declining by 6.5% to $59.59 billion in the month, India’s overall foreign trade in goods compressed, resulting in a relatively low trade deficit of $20.7 billion.

Exports of goods contracted for the first time since October 2026, though shipments have been tepid in most recent months.

“Our exports to West Asia in March went down by $3.5 billion. Normally, monthly exports to the region are around $6 billion but this March only $2.5 billion worth of exports went. In percentage terms, it has been a decline of 57.9%,” Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal told reporters.

The Indian negotiators would be travelling to US from April 20-22 to work towards finalising the legal agreement based on the joint statement of February 7 while preserving the comparative tariff advantage in the American market

“As a follow-up of the joint statement, an agreement has to be finalised. If the (reciprocal) tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers (IEEPA) are not there what kind of commitments will we get which will give us a comparative advantage in the US market,” a senior official said.

A high-level inter-ministerial body, AI Governance and Economic Group, headed by Union IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, has been constituted to steer the country's national AI governance strategy, an official statement said on Thursday.

AI Governance and Economic Group (AIGEG) will coordinate policy across ministries, departments and sectoral regulators and oversee cross-sectoral governance issues.

India and New Zealand will sign a free trade agreement (FTA) on April 27 here, an official said on Thursday.

The free trade pact aims to provide tariff-free access to the island nation's market for domestic exporters' goods and will bring in USD 20 billion in investment over the next 15 years.

Corporate India is grappling with a sharp spike in commodity costs triggered by the war in West Asia that has forced firms to reassess pricing strategies, defer capital expenditure plans, and brace for earnings and margin pressures in the coming quarters.

Crude oil, the most immediate casualty of the conflict, has seen heightened volatility, with the benchmark Brent price surging nearly 33% since the start of the war. Key industrial raw materials and petroleum derivatives such as urea, naphtha, sulphur, titanium dioxide and PVC resins have seen price rise ranging from nearly 20% to as high as 70% in the past month and half.

Private equity investors in India are increasingly favouring buyouts as they seek greater control and operational influence, driving a sharp rise in both deal value and volume. According to a recent EY report, average annual buyout investments rose 52% to $14.2 billion during 2021–2025, compared with $9.3 billion in 2016–2020. The average number of transactions also increased 30% to 56 deals from 43 over the same period.

The shift reflects a maturing market where a growing pool of cash-generative businesses is becoming available for full or majority stake sales. EY said that founders, families and early investors are increasingly open to meaningful exits, often linked to succession planning, portfolio restructuring or professionalisation. This is creating a pipeline of assets where promoters are willing to cede control.

India's crude oil imports fell 21% in the first fortnight of April compared with February, reflecting the supply disruptions caused by the Iran war. The month saw Russia account for about 40% of supplies and Iran emerging as India's fourth-largest crude supplier, overtaking the US.

India’s imports of Russian crude oil doubled in March 2026, pushing total purchases of Russian fossil fuels to €5.8 billion, even as Moscow’s export revenues surged 52% month-on-month to €713 million per day — the highest in two years — amid rising prices and sanctions-driven shifts in trade flows.

According to Finland-based centre for research on energy and clean air, crude oil dominated India’s imports at €5.3 billion, accounting for 91% of total purchases. Coal imports stood at €337 million, while oil products were valued at €178.5 million, indicating continued diversification across fuels.

Apple’s vendors exported a record $2.5 billion of components and sub-assemblies to China in FY26 already, indicating early success of the government’s electronics component manufacturing scheme (ECMS) that was notified last year, said officials and industry executives. It also marked the start of a reversal trend of the traditional process of Chinese vendors exporting parts to India for cellphones and other electronic items.

India is likely to reach $3.5 billion of electronics exports to China in FY26 with $2.8 billion already achieved till January, industry executives said. In FY25, electronics exports to China were around $920 million and before that, the amount was negligible.