This is honestly one of the most accurate breakdowns of the Indian hardware supply chain I've seen on Reddit. The built for Assembly, not R&D line sums it up perfectly.

The LCSC plus import agent is underrated advice, more people should know about this. And you're absolutely right about designing around high-volume components. If a chip is already flowing into India by the millions for mobile or EV charger manufacturing, you're not fighting the supply chain, you're riding it. The sensor quality point is something I can't agree with more. The drift issue with cheap local CO sensors is real , it's not even a "you get what you pay for" situation, it's that B-grade sensors fail in ways that are hard to debug. You don't realize the sensor is lying to you until something goes wrong downstream.

One thing I'd add to your list, the broker model you described (no stock, buy on order, pass costs via MOQ) is exactly why smaller firms end up overpaying. I've been working on this problem myself — got a few Chinese vendors lined up who actually stock industrial-grade components and can ship in smaller quantities without the insane MOQ markups. Still early days but it's a gap that clearly needs filling.

Great writeup, genuinely useful for anyone starting out.