Apple component makers are also setting up shop in India

The Apple supply chain is delivering an accelerating pace of news from India. Most recently we learned Apple plans to open retail stores there, now we learn of yet more company partners setting up factories there.

Tata makes iPhones, India makes components

The biggest slice of recent news is that Tata Group will indeed climb in with Wistron to own and run an iPhone factory in Karnataka, picking up PLI (Production Linked Incentive) Indian government subsidy as it does.

This news follows speculation to this effect starting in November and comes as a wave of local and international partners descend on India to make the escape from over-dependence on factories in China.

Apple is on track for a huge increase in iPhone manufacture in India, where half or more of the iPhones sold worldwide will eventually be produced, according to various market rumors.

But a supply chain is only as swift as production of its components.

A supply chain is as fast as its slowest parts

With this in mind it is I guess predictable that as Apple’s larger partners migrate to India, the company’s other component makers are planning to follow in their tracks. The most recent news here is that Chines firm Sunny Optotch has reached a deal to create a $300 million facility in India, which will be operational at some point in 2024.

“We are going to roll out the project in different phases till 2026. We have not decided on where to locate this facility. We are going to firm up our plans soon. It will cater to both mobile phones and laptops and computers of Apple,” Welly Liu, President of Sunny Opotech India, told a local business news site.

Liu also hinted at the value of Apple’s business to the global market for mobile cameras.

He said Apple contributes up to $18 billion of the total $30 billion mobile camera market. Industry watchers should think on that while they consider the importance of machine vision intelligence across a swathe of tech spaces.

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