iPhone 13: Local assembly to help Apple meet robust consumer appetite

After months of trial production, Apple’s contract manufacturer Foxconn has commenced manufacturing of iPhone 13 near Chennai in India. Launched globally (including India) only in September last year, iPhone 13 has emerged as one of the most popular and top-selling iPhone in the country. The local manufacturing will help Apple make further in-roads in the competitive Indian smartphone market.

“We are excited to begin making iPhone 13 — with its beautiful design, advanced camera systems for stunning photos and videos, and the incredible performance of the A15 Bionic chip — right here in India for our local customers,” said Apple.

Industry sources confirmed that Foxconn has commenced with a small number of iPhone 13 units. Apple will continue to import iPhone 13 units for domestic consumption, but Foxconn will scale up the iPhone 13 manufacturing in the coming months to cater to the domestic demand. “With the production of its latest flagship iPhone 13 in India, Apple will be able to make further in-roads into India’s hyper-competitive smartphone market. Importantly, Apple will be able to meet the robust consumer appetite for the latest iPhone,” Prabhu Ram, Head - Industry Intelligence Group, Cyber Media Research told Business Today.

As early estimates from CyberMedia Research (CMR) suggest, in Q1 2022, Apple iPhone shipments in India will potentially register a strong >20 per cent year-on-year. “The contribution of the iPhone 13 series stands close to 17 per cent of the total iPhone shipments, and almost equal to the contribution of the older-generation iPhone 12 series. We believe that with the local manufacturing of iPhone 13, the newest generation of iPhones will give a considerable thrust to Apple’s current strong growth momentum,” added Ram.

Apple has registered a stellar year in 2021 by shipping a record 5.4 million units of iPhones in India in the calendar year 2021, and 2.2 million in the festive quarter (Q4) alone. “At CMR, we believe Apple is on track for a record year ahead in 2022. The Apple iPhone shipments will potentially touch the 7 million mark in CY2022. This, in turn, would translate into a historic 5.5 per cent market share for Apple,” says Ram. Apple had closed CY 2021 with a 4.4 per cent market share of the Indian smartphone market, a significant jump of 2.4 per cent share in CY 2020.

Apple commenced manufacturing iPhones in India in 2017 with iPhone SE, and today it assembles iPhone 11, iPhone 12 too in the country through contract manufacturers. Currently, Apple iPhones are manufactured (assembled) in India by Foxconn and Wistron, in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, respectively. Pegatron too is expected to commence iPhone manufacturing in India this month. All the three contract manufacturers have also applied for the government’s production linked incentive (PLI) scheme.

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