South Korea’s Samsung Electronics is preparing to diversify its smartphone production and export operations to mitigate the impact of potential US tariffs on Vietnam. The tech giant plans to shift a significant portion of its manufacturing for US-bound smartphones from Vietnam to multiple countries, including India.

“We are ready to produce for the US in multiple factories, including India,” said Won-Joon Choi, President and COO of Samsung’s Mobile eXperience business and head of its R&D office. “What we have done is to diversify our factories for the products that we're going to ship to the US.” Currently, Vietnam caters to most of Samsung’s US smartphone demand, while India-made phones are exported to other international markets. However, Samsung has started shipping limited quantities of smartphones from India to the US in response to changing geopolitical dynamics. 

India has the capacity to manufacture up to 70 million smartphones annually, with current production at around 45 million. In FY25, Samsung exported smartphones worth over Rs 30,000 crore (USD 3.5 billion) from India. With the US market accounting for USD 10 billion of Samsung’s exports, a significant share of that may now shift to India, depending on future tariff decisions.