United Statak Giant Apple said this month that India will play a major role in making iPhones for the US market.
Announcing the latest quarterly results of the company, CEO Tim Cook said in May, “Most of the iPhones sold in the US will be placed as India as their original country.”
He said that Vietnam will be near iPads, Mac, Apple watches and airpods sold in America.
The decision was aimed at reducing the impact of US President Donald Trump’s tariff, which was on the supply chains of the tech giants as well as the sale and profit margin.
Senior Economist of the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, accounting Chakraborty said that Apple transferred some iPhone production to India in India, not only presented some possible challenges.
“A fine analysis suggests that cost competitiveness Viz-e-Visas shows potential challenges, including laboratory market rigidity and supply chain weaknesses,” he explained DW.
Chakraborty said that making iphones in India is 5–10% more expensive, which indicates expensive parts and relatively disabled factories.
“In addition, the fiscal implications of this investment warrant, especially in terms of tax revenue, infrastructure investment and potential subsidy,” Chakravarti said, “adding a” calibrated policy approach to reduce the risk and get maximum benefits. ,
Apple increases iPhone production in India
Currently 20% of iPhones are created in India. According to Bloomberg, Apple produced $ 22 billion iPhone in India in 12 months through March 2025, leaving 60% from the previous year.
The US company plans to produce more than 60 million iPhones annually in South Asian country by 2026, double the current production and a large extent in India’s electronics manufacturing sector.
In India, iPhones are assembled by three primary contract manufacturers – Foxconn, Petron Corp and a Tata group company, first known as Vistron. Foxconn is the largest of the three, which is handling the majority of iPhone production in the South Asian nation.
The Government of India recently announced a new policy with the aim of strengthening the country’s electronics manufacturing ecosystem.
The production change represents a significant change for Apple, which is traditionally dependent on the Chinese factory to create its products.
But the US’s duties on imports on Trump’s issue, especially with China, placed the company in a difficult place and forced it to rethink its strategy.
The US president has since allowed a temporary recurrence for technical products including smartphones and semiconductors. Washington and Beijing agreed to hit the 90 -day break over their Tare Taraft controversy over the weekend.
Scaling capacity and de-digging supply chain
Apple will actually need to invest heavy in infrastructure, skills and technology, a consultancy firm, Legalwiz.in founder Srijay Sheth told DW.
“While it is a strong victory for India’s business and makes it stand as a preferred destination for companies seeking business-friendly destinations, it already adds another of complexity to the dice Indo-China relations,” said. “He said.
Sheth believes that changing a large part of production from China to India will face obstacles in the matter of technology and expertise transfer.
He said, “It is innocent to hopes that Chinese expertise plus skill transfer and production machinery will be moved with the necessary geo -political landscape and exclusively when China loses an important source of manufacturing jobs,” he insisted.
“When you re -create economics, skilled laboratory and supply chain, this is a big question, this is a big question.”
‘Constant limits’
Indigemic co-founder and CEO Nikul Shah, who specializes in semiconductor and embedded systems, believes that India has the ability to meet all iPhones demand in future, but the ecosystem needs to grow.
He insisted that Increate iPhone production gives India an opportunity to increase its role in the global electronics manufacturing network.
“But success will depart on the infrastructure and policy limit to continuously, which historically disrupted its manufacturing competition,” Shah underlined.
“While it aligns with the ‘Make in India’ initiative, converts the country into a global electronics manufacturing hub, it shows risk search as a single multinational company and more dependence on potential geopolitical pressures.”
Edited by: Srinivas Majumdaru
