Based on the Financial Times, which cites sources “accustomed to the matter,” Apple plans to assemble in India all iPhones meant for the US by the top of 2026. The vast majority of Apple’s iPhones are presently made in China, however Chinese language-made merchandise have develop into a poisonous asset for US import.
The US authorities has imposed a 145 percent tariff on items from China. Whereas smartphones are included in a 90-day reprieve, introduced in early April, President Trump has indicated this exclusion is certainly a short lived one. Able to pay $2,949 for a base storage iPhone 17 Professional Max?
Apple’s supposed shifting of its manufacturing to India is an insurance coverage coverage in opposition to such chaos sooner or later, but it surely didn’t start right here. In December 2024, we wrote about Apple’s growing reliance on India for manufacturing as a bulwark in opposition to rising US-China tensions.
Indian manufacturing of iPhones commenced in 2017, beginning with the lower-cost iPhone SE. The nation started producing flagship-model launch iPhones in 2023.
Regardless of being the higher a part of a decade into Indian iPhone manufacturing, this newest alleged shift in technique nonetheless represents a really pricey turbocharging of its efforts—and certain a minimum of a doubling of output from Apple’s Indian manufacturing crops. WIRED approached Apple for remark, however had not obtained a response at time of publishing.
How Many Indian iPhones?
“Our estimates say that Apple produced round 40 to 43 million [iPhones] in India final 12 months,” says Navkendar Singh, affiliate vice chairman at IDC India. “About 12 or 13 million have been consumed within the India market completely, and the remaining have been exported out.”
Greater than 60 million iPhones are bought within the US annually, the place the sequence instructions a 57 p.c smartphone market share, in response to some estimates. “So about 80 to 85 million [iPhones] they might want to produce in India,” says Singh, ought to Apple need to fulfill US demand at present ranges whereas additionally serving native Indian market demand.
This enlargement doesn’t solely depend on Apple’s investments. As in all of Apple’s main manufacturing efforts, any Indian enlargement will contain companions, primarily Tata Electronics, Foxconn, and Pegatron.
“Tata is totally operating at capability proper now,” says Singh. Tata is the first pressure behind Indian iPhone manufacture at current. It operates an meeting plant in Tamil Nadu, within the nation’s south. It acquired Wistron’s iPhone-manufacturing Karnataka facility in 2023 and, in January 2025, closed on a majority 60 p.c stake in Taiwanese firm Pegatron’s Indian operation.
This in flip represents a consolidation of Indian iPhone manufacturing being stewarded by an Indian firm, Tata Electronics. Foxconn, Pegatron, and Wistron are all Taiwanese corporations, regardless of their international attain and significance.
Hassle on the Manufacturing unit
Apple’s Tata-led manufacturing has not been completely clean. In 2023, Tata’s Hosur manufacturing unit, which produced iPhone casings, reportedly had a yield charge of just 50 percent, with half of the parts failing Apple’s rigorous high quality checks. It is a very low yield charge, and it highlights the significance of a talented and environment friendly manufacturing operation.
“There simply isn’t a way of urgency,” a former Apple engineer advised the Financial Times, talking on Apple’s Indian operations in 2023. Apple’s 2025–2026 improve in Indian manufacturing shall be a check of whether or not that scenario has modified and by how a lot.
