World’s biggest company by market capitalization, Apple has reported that it has manufactured iPhones worth INR 1 Lakh Cr in India in 2023.
Apple Increased Production in India
An official, privy to the production planning and capacity, said that the Cupertino based tech giant has ramped up its production in India as compared to the previous year.
The freight on board (FOB) value of the Apple devices stood at INR 1 Lakh Cr whereas the market value of the production stood between INR 1.5 Lakh Cr to INR 1.7 Lakh Cr.
For the unaware, the FOB is the price of a product when it leaves the factory while the market value includes other charges such as taxes and dealer commissions.
Between the one-year period between January and December 2023, as many as INR 65,000 Cr worth ‘Made in India’ iPhones were exported.
Five iPhone models were manufactured and exported out of India by Apple in the year 2023 – iPhone 11, iPhone 12, iPhone 13, iPhone 14 and iPhone 15.
As per the official “Apple has delivered on the promise of making India a second home for iPhone manufacturing. The company is now expanding its supply chain in the country”.
The reason behind the production shift out of China was the ongoing geopolitical tensions between Beijing and Washington DC as well as the risk diversification as in Covid the supply chain was totally dependent on “the Red Dragon”.
The reason why India seemed all the more enticing as a production destination was due to the Centre’s attractive production-linked-incentives (PLIs) for manufacturers in the country.
As a result of this, there was a beeline of Apple vendors post this scheme announcement. These include the likes of Foxconn, Pegatron, Wistron India (acquired by the Tata Group in late 2023).
When it came to the production, it was the Foxconn which led the pack with contributing to 68% of total production out of India, followed by Pegatron & Wistron with 18% & 14% respectively.
Speaking of the overseas exports, Foxconn exported nearly 58% of the phones that it manufactured in India, same numbers for Pegatron and Wistron was 80% and 96% of their production.
In the totality, 65% of total iPhone manufactured in India were exported to regions like US, Europe, West Asia, among others.
Plans to Manufacture 50 Million iPhones in India
As per one of the reports from December 2023, Apple plans to manufacture more than 50 Million iPhones in India annually.
The PLI scheme by government of India stood out as red carpet for Apple to invest further which later translated increased in production in India to overall production from 1% in 2021 to around 7% in December 2023.
Apple’s vendor, Foxconn is planning to invest additional INR 13,911 Cr to ramp up production at its Karnataka facility.
In addition to this, Corning Inc, who is one of Apple supplier and also gorilla glass maker, is planning to invest INR 1,000 Cr to build a manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu.
By the end of Financial year 2022, market share of Apple in India increased from sub-2% in FY18 to 6%.
Notably, Samsung saw its market share declined from 26% in FY18 to 20% in FY23. Despite this, Samsung still rules the Indian premium smartphone market.
