Apple to ramp up production over five-fold in India to $40 billion in next 5 years: Report

Apple Inc. will be scaling up production in India by over five-fold to around $40 billion, (approx 3.32 lakh crore) in the next 4 to 5 years, PTI reported citing government sources. The company has crossed  the $7 billion production mark in the last financial year.

"Apple has plans to increase production in India to over $40 billion in the next 4-5 years. It has crossed $7 billion in the last fiscal,” a government official quoted by the news agency said. 

Apple is already manufacturing iPhones in India and has plans to start manufacturing Airpods from next year. The officer said that Apple has no immediate plans to make iPads or its laptops in India.

"They don’t have any plans to participate in IT hardware PLI. They may come at a later stage but as of now their focus is to scale up existing production levels,” the officer said.

On September 22, iPhone 15 series including iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max hit the stores in India and other countries. For the first time, the Cupertino-based company made the India-built iPhone 15 models available in the country and other parts of the world on the global sales debut day.

According to industry sources, sales of Apple’s iPhone 15 series registered a 100 per cent growth compared to that of the iPhone 14 series on the launch day on Friday. The Cupertino-based globally sold iPhones worth $191 billion and products worth $38.36 billion in the wearable, home and accessories segment in the financial year ended on September 25, 2022.

According to market research firm Counterpoint Research, Apple led the ultra-premium segment, with phones priced above Rs 45,000 apiece, with 59 per cent market share in the first quarter of 2023 and India is among the top-five markets for the company now.

Last week, a report said that Apple for the first time outpaced its Korean rival Samsung on smartphone export volumes from India. It shipped 49 per cent of the country’s total 12 million shipments in the June quarter compared to its Korean rival's 45 per cent, Economic Times reported. The spike in shipping volumes underscores the US-based company's rapid expansion of local manufacturing in the country.

Industry data showed Apple clocked a rapid growth in export volumes in the last year. Its share of exports soared from just 9 per cent of the roughly 8 million smartphones shipped in Q2 2022, to almost half the total smartphone exports in Q2 2023. India exported around 13 million smartphones in March quarter this year, which fell to 12 million in Q2 2023. Exports stood at 10 million smartphones in Q1 2022, and 8 million in Q2 2022, the report said.

In comparison, Samsung’s share of export volumes fell from 50 per cent in Q1 2023 to 45 per cent in Q2 2023. The sharp decline from Q2 2022 is matter of concern as the South Korean company has always dominated the export market from India.

Since Apple started manufacturing in India in 2017, Apple’s robust performance has been driven by a boost in production by three of its contract manufacturers — Foxconn, Wistron, and Pegatron — from the second half of 2022 with the production of iPhone 14 to cater to the growing Indian market and its exports.

All three iPhone manufacturers are part of the Centre’s production-linked incentive scheme for smartphone manufacturing.

Also read: Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max buyers in India can take a flight to Dubai, buy the phone and still save Rs 24,000

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