The pandemic year has changed the face of the technology market all over the world. With the opening of new horizons for India, new opportunities await. Following this, in a major announcement, Apple Inc said it will soon start manufacturing iPhone 12 in Tamil Nadu, India. The company is also planning to manufacture iPad.
This would mean a boost for Delhi’s Make In India campaign. And of course, it would pave the path for many other mobile manufacturing units as well. Recently the government of India announced a $1.02 billion incentive to promote local manufacturing and export of IT products. The scheme is known as PLI Scheme. The manufacturers will also get a cashback between 1-4% of additional sales of locally made products.
On the parallel front, Apple will invest Rs.2.9 billion in Indian plants creating better infrastructure and employment in the country.
Apple has partnered with three global vendors including Foxconn, Pegatron, and Wistron for manufacturing iPhones in India. Currently, the units are manufacturing iPhone SE, iPhone XR, and the iPhone 11.
Wistron and Foxconn are operational in India and Pegatron is yet to commence production. The latter is expected to go functional by mid of 2022.
The iPhone enthusiasts in India can expect a potential price drop in the near future similar to iPhone SE & iPhone XR, and iPhone 11 which is a best-selling product of Apple Inc. in India. However, the company doesn’t disclose when the newly assembled iPhone 12 will hit the retail stores in India.
Subsequently, assembled in India iPhone 12 will be available for sale in India and for export as well.
The Wistron plant faced labor problems in the month of December and January which briefly halted the production of iPhones. But, now the facility has resumed production after the company took deliberate steps to resolve the issues.
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Learning from the events of the last year Apple Inc. in an ensuing strategy would cut on the reliability of Chinese plants by shifting 7% to 10% of the production to Indian plants. Additionally, the mobile manufacturer eyes the booming smartphone market of India where the company’s share is comparatively lower than the other smartphone manufacturer giants.
