Apple confirms it is ‘excited’ to make iPhone 14 in India

Apple has confirmed claims that it intends manufacturing iPhone 14 models at Foxconn’s factory in Chennai, India. The locally produced devices will go on sale in India later this year, the company said.

Apple is excited at India manufacturing plans

Apple even released a statement on the matter, telling TechCrunch it was “excited” to begin making iPhones there. Apple has of course made iPhone in India since 2017, but what’s new here is that the company is now making at least one current model in the world’s second largest smartphone market. It made older generation models there until now.

The company has been engaged in huge efforts to build its business and the presence of its business in India since CEO Tim Cook visited the nation in 2016. At that time, he promised Apple intended playing its part in business there for a thousand years, and since then the company he leads has worked closely with government and partners to improve its business there.

There is still plenty to do, of course. India remains a relatively protected economy, and the government there recently began pushing tech companies to support its own home-grown GPS system, which Apple and others apparently don’t want to do on grounds of hardware changes and cost.

India is becoming a major Apple orchard

Analysts predict Apple will turn India into a global iPhone manufacturing hub by 2025 as it seeks to reduce its reliance on China, where most of its products have been made for years. JP Morgan recently predicted Apple will move 5% of its global production there by late 2022 and make 25% of all iPhones there by 2025.

The initiative seems to have big wings. Most recently, we learned giant India conglomerate, Tata Group may work with Wistron to set up an iPhone factory, while another huge company in India, Vedanta, is also in talks to do so, this time with Foxconn.

Apple broke iPhone, iPad and Mac sales records in India in 2021.

Please follow me on Twitter, or join me in the AppleHolic’s bar & grill and Apple Discussions groups on MeWe.