In India, tight control of quality clearances for electronic goods from China slowed the import of Apple’s new iPhone model last month and held up other products made by companies like Xiaomi, Reuters reports, citing “two industry sources.”
Applications to the quality control agency, the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), typically used to be processed within 15 days, but some are now taking up to two months or longer.
BIS started delaying approvals in August for China-made imports of devices like smartphones, smartwatches and laptops, part of the fallout from deteriorating ties with China after a border clash in June that left 20 Indian soldiers dead.
When Apple’s new iPhone 12 was caught in the delays, Apple India executives called on BIS to speed its approval up, giving assurances that the company would continue to expand its assembly operations in India, the two sources said.
It was not clear how long the iPhone 12 application was delayed… The company has assembly operations in India, but newer models and the iPhone 12 are imported from China, where contract manufacturers make the bulk of Apple’s devices.
MacDailyNews Take: So, for all we know, iPhone 12 could have been slowed in India for all of 12 minutes before Apple made the call and the BIS expedited iPhone 12 since Apple is making a heavy commitment to Prime Minister Modi‘s Make in India initiative.
India is a horrible Andriod (as in cheap) loving country where Apple should stay out of. The nightmare that is India is not worth it.
I agree. Such a picky country. Apple isn’t going to get much in the way of sales from India. Apple would struggle for years just to break a measly 3% iPhone market share percentage. When most consumers in India spend $100 to $150 for a smartphone, how can Apple gain anything. I get it. Some consumers are very cost conscious and they’re not going to buy more than what they actually need. The only problem is with analysts constantly stressing how Apple is missing out on a billion iPhone unit sales. Yeah, right. Those analyst idiots never learned anything from the collapse of Nokia. Selling cheap devices below cost to capture market share is bad business.
Absolutely, and the cost and expense Apple is incurring in India means we in the rest of the free world are paying higher prices for Apple Goods. I do wonder if Apple is making any profit in India, if they are not making profit, then how much are we outside India making up for the losses.