iPhone 12, 11 Will Be Manufactured In India; 10% Production From China To Be Shifted To India

Soon, Apple’s latest model, iPhone 12 which was launched in India on October 30 last year a few weeks after its global release, will have the Made In India tag attached to it.

Manufacturing Unit In Tamil Nadu

The Smartphone manufacturer is planning to launch its manufacturing unit in India at the Hon Hai Precision Industry (Foxconn) facility in Tamil Nadu.

The company plans for both the domestic as well as export markets.

Apart from iPhone 12, this unit also manufactures iPhone 11, as it is the bestseller in India, as well as iPhone XR. 

To manufacture in India, Apple Inc. has tied up with three global vendors including Foxconn, Pegatron, and Wistron.

The deal is under the production-linked incentive scheme with huge commitments to export.

Labor Problems

So far, Wistron and Foxconn are already in operation in India.

On the other hand, Pegatron’s unit is expected to come up sometime in the middle of next year, according to sources.

With this move, Apple Inc. is expected to shift 7-10 percent of its capacity from China, said the experts.

Earlier in December and January, the company has been facing labor problems in the Wistron plant.

The situation had a further impact on production in the facility which was manufacturing Apple SE 2000, which was launched globally in April 2020.

According To the analysts, it was also supposed to manufacture Apple iPhone 12 Mini, but no final call on this has been taken as the demand for the product has been limited.

Positive Outlook In India

Sources say that, Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has been bullish on the Indian push of the company. 

He said, “India is one of those (countries) where our share is quite low,” while talking about Apple India’s performance on January 28 on its December-quarter performance.

Further, he mentioned, “It did improve in the year-ago quarter. Our business doubled over that period of time. And so we feel very good about the trajectory. We are doing a number of things in the area. We put the online store there, for example, and the last quarter was the full quarter of the online store,”.