Ravi Shankar Prasad highlights 'chronology' of Apple's iPhone manufacturing in India

Listing out a chronology of tech giant Apple starting production of its iPhones in India over the last few years, Telecom and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said it is a statement of how the Modi government has developed the mobile manufacturing ecosystem in the country.

He cheered the start of production of Apple's premium iPhone 11 at the Foxconn plant near Chennai that was announced by fellow Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal on Friday. "It's only a humble beginning," Prasad said, indicating that more plans by companies to start manufacturing electronic goods in India might be on the pipeline.

Foxconn, the world's biggest contract electronics maker, currently has two plants in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh where it assembles Apple and Xiaomi smartphones. The company already manufactures Apple iPhone 6S, iPhone 7, and iPhone XR in India.

According to reports, Apple currently sells smartphones "worth some $1.5 billion in India, of which less than $0.5 billion is locally manufactured, and has a market share of some 2-3%".

Earlier this month, reports suggested that Foxconn has planned to invest $1 billion in India amid rising anti-China sentiments due to its expansionist behaviour and handling of coronavirus. Some of the industries and conglomerates across the world have been contemplating on gradually moving out from China to reduce the over-dependence on an authoritarian state. Apart from India, Apple has also considered Vietnam as one of its top manufacturing hubs.

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'Further investment'

In the company’s annual general, Foxconn Chairman Liu Young-way said they are fully pushing ahead with the next steps in India, and maybe in a few months’ time, they will be able to reveal on the next steps on company’s website and report back to everyone. “We will have a further investment there,” he said without revealing further details then. 

The investment will reportedly take place over three years and will add about 6,000 jobs at the Sriperumbur plant in Tamil Nadu, which at present manufactures iPhone the iPhone XR, Apple’s cheaper flagship iPhone. The older version of the iPhone SE and some other models that have been discontinued by the company were also manufactured in the Sriperumbur plant. The assembly of the iPhone 11 in India would help Apple avoid a 20% tax that it pays for importing the handset from its global manufacturing facilities.

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