Apple is lobbying for larger India incentives in a new incentive plan aimed to boost Indian exports of computer products, part of what government and industry sources say are plans to bring iPad assembly to the South Asian country.
Sankalp Phartiyal for Reuters:
India launched a $6.7 billion plan to boost smartphone exports last year… Apple, which has steadily raised production of iPhones in India to lessen its dependence on Chinese manufacturing, took part in that scheme via its contract manufacturers.
Now Prime Minister Narendra Modi preparing to unveil another incentive to drive local manufacturing of IT products including tablets, laptops, and servers in a continued effort to promote electronics manufacturing and create jobs.
The new performance-linked incentive (PLI) scheme, which offers cash-back to manufacturers for exports, will have a budget of up to 70 billion rupees ($964.5 million) over five years, the sources said. It’s expected to be launched by the end of February.
Apple, along with others, is lobbying for a bigger budgetary outlay of 200 billion rupees before that plan is finalised, as India doesn’t yet have the scale or the supply chain for making IT products and competes with duty-free imports of tech products, two of the sources said.
MacDailyNews Take: India would be smart to incentivize Apple to bring iPad (and other products) assembly into the country, as the products sell in the tens of millions of units per year and in the hundreds of millions of units over a five-year period.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Brawndo Drinker” for the heads up.]