Apple Inc, the big tech company that stands out amidst its contemporaries, has reiterated its non-belligerent stance by tripling its coveted iPhone production in India, in a move to migrate beyond China.
The California-based company aggrandized the significance of India’s role in iPhone production ramped through their partners, Foxconn Technology Group to Pegatron Corp by assembling iPhones worth more than $7 billion in India in the last fiscal year.
As tensions between US-China continue to escalate, Apple has strategically been traversing through courses of action to reduce its reliance on China. This comes after US lawmakers decided to convene with big tech leaders including Apple’s Tim Cook, Disney’s Bob Iger, and other plenteous executives from Google, Palantir and Microsoft, to discourse on how to take the crown off its Chinese counterparts and devise ways to trail back production facilities in the US.
Apple supplier, Foxconn’s main ‘iPhone City’ complex in Zhengzhou spawned chaotic struggles and vulnerabilities in Apple’s supply chain, coercing the tech company to cut output estimates in China. Yet, of the comprehensive production, Apple exported $5 billion iPhones in the fiscal year which ended in March 2023, which earmarked a fourfold increase from the previous year.
Between 1 To 7 Percent: Apple iPhone Production India
India’s triumph at the provenance of future growth contradicts the decrepitating economy of China as it tries to rise above its years-long punishment of Covid Zero restrictions.
The big tech company had been moving away its manufacturing facilities from China to India and Vietnam. Apple’s shift from China to India epitomizes a supreme economic feat for India, coinciding with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cascade of incentives to boost local manufacturing.
Apple iPhone’s manufacturing shift to India proliferated the tech’s repertoire from 1 percent in 2021 to 7 percent in 2023 and this directive stands the test of time with implications for how other US brands plan their future. Apple India’s iPhone production skyrocketed to a stunning $7 billion, which is even more impressive because Apple’s production facilities in India are still in their incipient stage.
Even before the unpredictable doldrums of Apple’s complex in China, the tech titan had distinguished the need to diversify its supply chain, prompting the increase in iPhone production in India. Apple lobbied for the incentives in India and maneuvered its suppliers Foxconn, Wistron, and Pegatron to boost India’s role in iPhone production, who were even keener to establish new logistical supply chains.
Together, the companies employed 60000 workers in the country and consummated models ranging from iPhone 11 to iPhone 14. The journey of this iPhone production has been quite transformative because previously, India was only making outdated iPhones but the shift to 7 percent, also brought the latest tech models to Indian factories.
India has so far been a pleasant foray for the Tim Cook-led company and if the favorable situations continue, Apple could assemble a quarter of all its iPhone production in India by 2025.
Apple Production In India Vs China
Apple’s renewed focus on pursuing growth avenues in the fastest-growing smartphone market in the world, India, is to accentuate its strategic move to reduce its dependence on China whilst also diversifying its supply chain.
Owing to a slew of political issues in China including CCP’s handling of the Covid pandemic and perception-based conflicts in the uprising at Zhengzhou, Apple is finding it difficult to conduct business. The verity of Apple’s massive manufacturing and R&D, and even the top-secret development of the hardware components in China, is threatened.
To make the environment more conducive for companies like Apple, many Indian states have made radical changes to their labor laws. And the Cupertino-based company is making all due efforts to expand local production.
Apple has implied that its partners will be setting up their R&D and manufacturing facilities in India soon, starting with the iPhone 15 series in September 2023. As part of its expansion plan, the big tech company will be bringing more production partners on board. The Tata Group has expressed its keenness to partner with Apple’s production facilities in India.
And in a move to underscore the rising domestic market, Apple is slated to open its first two retail outlets in India, one in Mumbai’s BKC and another in New Delhi’s Saket within this week. And the inauguration is going to be presided over by Chief Tim Cook, who is scheduled to fly in, especially for this event.
