Apple to Start Producing iPhones in India

Apple plans to begin manufacturing the iPhone 14 in India about two months after the product’s initial release in China.

The company has been working with suppliers to ramp up manufacturing in India and shorten the lag in production of the new iPhone from the typical six to nine months for previous launches, according to people familiar with the matter.

For a long time Apple has been manufacturing iPhones in China, but is seeking alternatives amid the increasing tensions between Washington and Beijing. The company aims to narrow the gap between its manufacturing capabilities in China and India.

As Bloomberg reports, Apple plans to start shipping the next iPhone from both countries at roughly the same time, with Indian manufactured gadgets starting to be shipped at the end of October. Foxconn Technology Group, the primary manufacturer of iPhones, studied the process of shipping components from China and assembling the iPhone 14 device at its plant outside the southern Indian city of Chennai, Bloomberg reports.

Some people within Apple and Foxconn had hoped to begin simultaneous production in India this year, but that was never an official plan, since Apple goes to extreme lengths to keep new product details confidential, and imposing the same rigorous controls in a second country would prove difficult. To ensure a smooth launch, Apple wanted to focus on getting the China operations up to speed first and then work out the India production, one of the people said.