Apple to make iPhone 14 in India as manufacturers shift production from China

127
3
Apple to make iPhone 14 in India as manufacturers shift production from China

NEW DELHI - Apple will make its iPhone 14 in India on Monday as manufacturers shift production from China amid geopolitical tensions and pandemic restrictions that have disrupted supply chains for many industries.

Apple said in a statement that they are excited to be able to produce iPhone 14 in India.

Apple unveiled its latest line-up of iPhones earlier this month. They will have improved cameras, faster processors and longer lasting batteries at the same price as last year s models.

India is the second-largest smartphone market after China, but Apple iPhone sales have struggled to capture a large share of the market against cheaper smartphones from competitors.

The announcement from the Cupertino, California-based company has been linked to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's push for local manufacturing, which has been a key goal for his government since he took office in 2014.

The tech company has been big in India, where it first began manufacturing its iPhone SE in 2017 and has since been able to assemble a number of iPhone models there. Apple opened its online store for India two years ago, but the pandemic has delayed plans for a flagship store in India, according to local media reports.

The latest model will be shipped out by Foxconn, a major iPhone assembler, whose facilities are located on the outskirts of Chennai, a city in southern India.

The analysts believe that nearly a quarter of Apple products will be manufactured outside China by the year 2025, compared to about 5% now. The report said that the relocation efforts that will continue over the next two or three years will likely be the result of supply chain risks like the stringent COVID 19 lockdowns seen in China.

Sanyam Chaurasia, an analyst at Canalys said Apple has tried to diversify its supply chain for a while but these efforts have grown in the last two years due to trade sanctions between the U.S. and China.

The tech giant produced around 7 million iPhones in India last year. He said that the news is likely to increase the India-made Apple phones.

He said that Apple may drop its prices for the Indian market, making it more competitive because of the plan to make more iPhones in India. If you manufacture locally, you can adopt a more aggressive pricing strategy, according to Chaurasia.

Most of Apple's smartphones and tablets are assembled by contractors with factories in China, but the company started asking them in 2020 to look at the possibility of moving some production to Southeast Asia or other places after repeated shutdowns to fight COVID 19 disrupted its global flow of products.

Apple hasn't released details, but news reports say the company plans to set up assembly of tablet computers and wireless earphones in Vietnam.

Other companies are keeping or expanding production in China to serve the domestic market, while moving export oriented work to other countries due to rising wages and other costs, as well as the difficulty for foreign executives to visit China due to anti-COVID 19 travel restrictions.