NEW DELHI, Sept. 22
India will require all smartphone screen protectors sold in the country to meet Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) requirements from April 1, 2027, bringing a largely unorganised market estimated at ₹12,000-15,000 crore a year under mandatory quality regulation.
The requirement will apply to screen protectors manufactured in India as well as imported products, according to an order issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on Monday. Most smartphone screen protectors sold in India are made from tempered glass.
The regulation could have a substantial impact on a market where cheap imports, particularly from China, account for a large share of sales. Indians purchase more than 500 million screen protectors annually, according to estimates from the Indian Cellular and Electronics Association (ICEA), which puts annual market growth at about 10 per cent.
ICEA estimates that as much as 90 per cent of screen protectors currently enter India through grey-market channels, with Chinese products dominating these supplies. The association has argued that the absence of mandatory standards has made it difficult to ensure consistent product quality and consumer safety while placing legitimate domestic manufacturers at a disadvantage.
The new rules will require manufacturers and importers to comply with BIS standards before their products can be sold in India. Testing is expected to cover areas including product stress, layer depth, visual and optical quality and dimensional tolerance.
Putting standards on paper, however, is only part of the task. Industry representatives say India will need sufficient testing infrastructure to handle the large volume of products that will eventually fall under the regulations.
The transition will also matter for smaller manufacturers. Industry stakeholders have said micro, small and medium enterprises involved in the sector should be given adequate time to adapt their production and testing processes before mandatory compliance begins in April 2027.
ICEA has been seeking mandatory quality standards for the industry since 2022. In February, it raised the issue with Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, arguing that domestic manufacturers were struggling to compete against imports because of what the association described as unfair trade practices.
The industry body said manufacturers were not seeking direct financial incentives from the government, but wanted common quality requirements that would apply equally to domestically manufactured and imported screen protectors.
The regulation could also have implications for government revenue.
ICEA has alleged widespread under-invoicing and misdeclaration in the screen-protector trade, resulting in customs duty and goods and services tax losses. In representations to the government, the association estimated that a more formalised industry could generate about ₹2,000 crore annually in GST revenue.
It has also estimated that expansion of domestic screen-protector manufacturing could eventually create around 60,000 jobs. Those figures are industry projections rather than government estimates and will depend on how manufacturers and importers respond once the standards become compulsory.
Domestic manufacturers see the regulatory change as an opportunity to expand production.
Optiemus Infracom, one of the companies manufacturing screen protectors in India, is planning to add capacity for another 20 million units as it prepares for expected demand.
“The introduction of mandatory BIS standards for screen protectors marks an important milestone for the category and a welcome step towards building a quality-led, Made-in-India ecosystem,” said Ashok Gupta, executive chairman of Optiemus Infracom.
Gupta said India could eventually develop into a manufacturing centre for screen protectors if domestic producers were able to build sufficient scale and capabilities. He also said the regulations could support local value addition, employment and smaller businesses across the supply chain.
The government order does not, by itself, guarantee that domestic manufacturers will replace imported products. Companies will still have to compete on price, quality and production capacity, while enforcement will determine how effectively non-compliant products are kept out of the market.
The scale of India’s smartphone market nevertheless makes screen protectors a sizeable electronics-accessories business in their own right. With consumers buying more than half a billion units each year, even relatively inexpensive individual products collectively represent a multibillion-rupee market.
Mandatory BIS compliance could particularly affect the fragmented network of importers, wholesalers and retailers through which inexpensive screen protectors are currently sold. Products that do not meet the prescribed standards will no longer be eligible for legal sale once the requirements take effect.
The period before April 2027 will therefore be important for both manufacturers and regulators. Domestic companies will have time to bring production into compliance, while testing capacity will need to expand sufficiently to prevent certification itself from becoming a bottleneck.
For consumers, the most immediate change will be straightforward: from April next year, a product that has long been sold with little standardised quality oversight will formally come within India’s compulsory electronics quality regime
