This content was published on Sep 26, 2022 – 14:33
(AFP)
US company Apple said on Monday it will manufacture its iPhone 14 mobile phone in India, in a bid to diversify its production and reduce its dependence on China.
The iPhone supply chain is mainly located in China, but the country’s policies against covid-19 and tensions between the governments in Beijing and Washington have affected production, according to analysts.
“We are excited to build the iPhone 14 in India,” Apple said in a brief statement.
The California-based company makes other iPhone models in India through Taiwanese manufacturers such as Foxconn, which has a factory in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
The announcement came weeks after Apple released new phones. Sanyam Chaurasia, an analyst at Canalys, said that the Apple brand will start production of the iPhone 14 in India much earlier than in previous models.
“In the past two years, I’ve started shifting more and more of the supply chain to India,” Chaurasia told AFP.
According to the analyst, about 7.5 million iPhones (about 3% of Apple’s global production) were made in India last year.
“For this year, domestic production of iPhones is expected to exceed 11 million,” he added.
Apple’s announcement could provide a boost to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Made in India” campaign, which aims to urge foreign companies to manufacture their goods in the country.
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