Apple is seriously examining the feasibility of shifting nearly a fifth of its iPhone production capacity from China to India and scaling up its Indian manufacturing revenues, through its contract manufacturers, to around $40 billion over the next five years, The Economic Times reports, citing “officials familiar with the matter.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi met top executives of Apple, Samsung and homegrown phone maker Lava on December 28 last year, which kick-started the process.
“India isn’t a big market for Apple as the company sells only a fraction of its total output in India. It is actually looking at India as a base to manufacture and export, essentially diversifying its production out of China,” the official said…
Apple is a top investor in China. In 2018-19, it produced merchandise valued at $220 billion in China, of which it exported goods worth $185 billion, according to industry experts. It directly and indirectly employs about 4.8 million people there.
MacDailyNews Take: Better late than never. And, not just with iPhone production, either. India, among many other countries, stands to benefit, as does the integrity of supply chains everywhere. As we wrote last week, China should get used to this idea.
We’ve long said that Apple has “too much dependence on one country for assembly.”
As we wrote last June, “File under: Don’t Put All your Eggs in One Basket.”
Better late than never on Apple’s diversification of production/assembly points in order to mitigate risk and, potentially, increase competition which would lower manufacturing costs. — MacDailyNews, July 17, 2019
The company will emerge stronger than ever, especially as they continue to diversify production instead of being almost entirely dependent on China. — MacDailyNews, April 16, 2020