Apple's India manufacturing plants thrive as iPhone exports rise 2X

Apple has almost doubled the export of its India-made iPhones from the previous fiscal to over $2.5 billion from just April to December this year.

According to a Bloomberg report, iPhone's two manufacturers, Foxconn Technology Group and Wistron Corp. have each shipped more than $1 billion of Apple’s marquee devices abroad in the first nine months of the fiscal year ending March 2023.

Whereas Pegatron Corp., another major contract manufacturer for Apple, is on track to move about $500 million of the gadgets overseas by the end of January, the report added.

Also read: Apple plans to move iPad production to India: Report

These rapidly growing export numbers illustrate how the iPhone maker is ramping up operations outside of China, where chaos at Foxconn’s main plant in Zhengzhou exposed vulnerabilities in the Cupertino-headquartered company’s supply chain and forced it to trim output estimates.

The disruptions prompted Apple to lower its forecast for shipments of the premium iPhone 14 models this week, dampening its sales outlook for the busy year-end holiday season.

It even led to a broader problem with evaporating demand for electronics as consumers weigh the risks of a global recession.

Apple, the world’s most valuable company, began assembling its latest iPhone models in India only last year, a significant break from its practice of reserving much of that for giant Chinese factories run by its main Taiwanese assemblers including Foxconn.

Also read: Tata Group bets big on Apple, company to open 100 iPhone retail stores in India

Meanwhile, Apple's supplier Foxconn plans to quadruple the workforce at its iPhone factory in India over two years. It also plans to boost the workforce at its plant in southern India to 70,000 by adding 53,000 more workers over the next two years.

While the size of the plant in India's southern state of Tamil Nadu is dwarfed by Foxconn's Zhengzhou plant, which employs 200,000 workers, it is central to Apple's efforts to shift production away from China.

Read: Apple iPhone 14 Pro shipments to shrink by 20 mn units; here's how it will impact Indian buyers