Key Details
The CII report Champions and Challengers finds that the five sectors occupy different competitive positions, but together show where manufacturing scale has — and has not — developed into a deeper domestic ecosystem.
Sector | CII’s assessment | 2025 trade position | Competitiveness gap |
|---|---|---|---|
Tyres | Established champion | $3.06 billion exports; $2.84 billion surplus | Passenger-car radials and advanced materials |
Footwear | Established champion | $2.53 billion exports; $1.95 billion surplus | Non-leather products, design and global-brand integration |
Bearings | Emerging challenger | $797 million exports; $726 million deficit | Precision inputs, specialised products and buyer qualification |
Hearables and wearables | Emerging challenger | Hearables: $164 million exports; $607 million imports | Components, product engineering and value beyond assembly |
Titanium | Strategic challenger | $14 million exports; over $142 million deficit | Titanium sponge, alloys, processing and certification |
Tyres Demonstrate the Value of an Integrated Ecosystem
India’s tyre exports more than doubled from $1.39 billion in 2016 to $3.06 billion in 2025, while imports fell to $220 million. The sector combines production scale with established suppliers, links to vehicle manufacturers and exports to more than 170 markets.
Its position is not uniformly strong: India remains less competitive in passenger-car radial tyres, a major segment of global demand. Even so, tyres offer the report’s clearest example of how supplier depth and manufacturing capability can translate into sustained export performance.
The Other Sectors Reveal Different Missing Links
Bearings: India exports selected products but remains dependent on imported bearing-grade steel, precision components and specialised bearings. China supplied 48% of imports in 2025.
Hearables and wearables: Final assembly has expanded faster than domestic capabilities in components, sensors, batteries, precision plastics, embedded software and design. Hearables are beginning to develop an export base; wearables remain primarily a domestic-scale manufacturing story.
Titanium: Mineral resources and indigenous technical knowledge have not translated into commercial-scale production of titanium metal and downstream products for aerospace, defence, medical devices and clean energy.
Footwear: India produces around 12.5% of the world’s footwear but accounts for only about 1.8% of global exports. Its strength remains concentrated in leather even though non-leather products account for nearly 86% of global footwear volumes.
These differences explain why sector-wide trade balances can mislead. Footwear can record a surplus while remaining weak in the fastest-growing segment; bearings can run a deficit while building competitive export niches.
The Manufacturing Constraint Has Moved Upstream
Across the five sectors, the recurring gaps lie before final assembly: materials, components, tooling, precision processing, testing and product development. Expanding final-product factories without addressing these inputs can increase output without producing a comparable increase in domestic value addition.
The report does not recommend manufacturing every input in India. It argues for targeted localisation where market scale, technological readiness and export potential can support commercially competitive production.
Testing and certification also emerge as industrial capabilities in their own right. In advanced materials, automotive components and electronics, a product may be technically manufacturable but remain excluded from global supply chains until it meets recognised standards and completes customer qualification.
What Is Domestic Value Capture?
Domestic value capture is the share of a product’s economic value generated within India through materials, components, engineering, design, intellectual property, manufacturing and associated services.
High production volumes do not necessarily imply high value capture if the most specialised inputs and technologies are imported and domestic activity is concentrated in final assembly.
Policy Relevance
Where support should concentrate: Sectoral programmes need to identify the specific material, component or process constraining competitiveness. Broad production incentives are less precise than interventions directed at viable upstream gaps.
What market access requires: Trade agreements can lower tariffs, but exporters still need competitive inputs, internationally recognised testing and the ability to meet global manufacturers’ quality and delivery requirements.
How progress should be judged: Future manufacturing support can be evaluated through changes in domestic value addition, supplier capability, product-level exports, technological upgrading and import concentration—not installed capacity alone.
Product-level trade monitoring is particularly important because aggregate sector figures can conceal both emerging strengths and strategic dependencies.
Follow the Full Report Here: Champions and Challengers: A Trade Competitiveness Assessment of India’s Strategic Manufacturing Sectors