AirPods are now partially made in India, report claims

In yet another signal of Apple’s changing supply chain ecosystem AirPod components manufactured in India are now being exported for assembly to China and Vietnam, Bloomberg has claimed.

Can you hear the noise?

The components, in this case the plastic enclosures for these devices, are being made at Apple supplier Jabil Inc’s factory in India.

That’s significant as it gives us a glimpse at a second key Apple product seeing partial manufacturer in India. Apple sold 23.8 million AirPods in Q3 for 31% of the true wireless stereo market, according to Canalys.

Counterpoint analyst Neil Shah told Bloomberg he expects Apple will continue to build out the AirPod supply chain in India as its works toward full production of the wireless earbuds there. For its own part, Apple is in the process of setting up its own retail stores in India.

A wave of activity is taking place

In other news, we learned Apple sold two million iPhones in India in Q4, up 18%, according to CMR data.

That’s broadly in line with similar statements from Counterpoint last week and means iPhone now accounts for 5.5 percent of India’s smartphone market and represents significant growth on the prior year during which Apple achieved 4.4%.

Apple also sold 200,000 iPads in India in Q4, the report claims.

What is the direction of travel?

Apple ultimately aims to make up to 50% of its smartphones in India, according to Ming-Chi Kuo, and is expected to make 25% of them in India by 2025, according to JP Morgan.

It is interesting to note that India accounted for 10-15% of Apple’s production capacity at the end of 2022, when the company exported a billion dollars of iPhones from there.

We recently learned India has approved over a dozen of Apple’s existing manufacturing partners to set up joint manufacturing ventures in the country with India partners. Luxshare, for example, is taking over a closed Motorola plant in India though manufacturing has not yet begun.

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