Apple has been manufacturing some of its older generation smartphones in India for quite some time now. The Cupertino based company has now started manufacturing the iPhone 11 here in India. This was confirmed via a tweet made by Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Friday. While the iPhone 12 lineup is just around the corner, this could still be helpful in bringing the prices down of the older gen iPhone.
Around 9 months ago, Apple started the assembly line for the iPhone XR in the country. Now, with the local assembly of the iPhone 11, the company will be able to avoid the 20 percent tax that it is needed to pay as a part of the import duty. Now that the smartphone is being assembled in India, Apple should bring down the prices of the iPhone 11 by a fair margin.
Apple currently has Foxconn, Wistron and Pegatron as the suppliers for its iPhone models. These suppliers are already making huge investments in India to bump up the production of iPhones in the country.
Currently, India has over 500 million smartphone users making the country one of the most important markets for smartphone manufacturers. Samsung, Xiaomi and Vivo have already invested a lot in the country. Now, the increasing demand is attracting Apple and its suppliers.
Foxconn is reportedly planning to invest up to USD 1 billion (roughly Rs. 7,500 crores) in India. This money will help the Apple supplier to expand its factories in the country.
Apple started this journey with the iPhone SE (2016). The company started manufacturing the smartphone in India starting May 2017 at Wistron’s Bengaluru facility.
