First Run of 'Assembled in India' iPhone SE Models Appear in Bangalore

Jun 26, 2017 4:49 am PDT by Mitchel Broussard

The first iPhone SE devices that have been made in India are beginning to circulate around Bangalore, according to a report today by The Indian Express. The site noted that it's still hard to come by an iPhone SE with "Assembled in India" on its back, because Apple has kicked off its Indian iPhone production with just a small trial run of limited units.


The India-made iPhone SE models are mostly appearing in Bangalore, which is expected since that's where Apple's assembly plant is located. Apple officially began assembling iPhones in India in the middle of May, with sources predicting that retail outlets would get the first shipments over the next few weeks.

The handsets have been assembled by Apple supplier Wistron, and Apple's plans for local production of iPhone devices began as part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "Make in India" initiative last year. This past weekend, PM Nodi met with Apple CEO Tim Cook and a collection of other tech CEOs to discuss the Indian government's attempts to improve the country's business climate and convince American-based companies to extend manufacturing into India.

Unfortunately, the iPhone SE hasn't seen a price reduction yet in the country, despite Apple's local manufacturing goals finally being realized after so long, which the company hopes will eventually lead to lower-priced devices. The Bangalore-made iPhone SE models are said to be "priced the same as other models manufactured in China," and it's unclear when such a price reduction might come to the iPhone SE models made and sold in India.

Related Roundup: iPhone SE 2020
Tag: India
Buyer's Guide: iPhone SE (Caution)
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MrGuder
50 months ago
Would be cool to see Assembled in the USA!!
Score: 8 Votes
Adam Warlock
50 months ago
Too bad we in the West seem hellbent on giving away our prosperity and don't have nearly enough "Made in X" requirement policies.
Rating: 6 Votes
marf1million
50 months ago
Would be cool to see Assembled in the USA!!
Nah not really, they would probably fall apart after a few weeks.
Rating: 6 Votes
macintoshmac
50 months ago
Thanks for the info! That's good to hear these jobs are slowly disappearing. I think it hasn't happened quickly due to cost (humans in a lot of places are still cheaper than robots) not company desire to automate, but regardless it's heartening to see this transformation taking shape. :)
Might you interest us in telling which profession are you in? Just to reduce costs and to attain a never-attainable perfection (because we are never happy with what we have, we just keep pushing boundaries to no end) you are willing to cut jobs that feed the population on the planet and call it heartening.

Robots weld our cars, make our cars, now we are trying to make robots drive our cars for us, what do you think remains to be the next step?
Rating: 6 Votes
DogHouseDub
50 months ago
Would be cool to see Assembled in the USA!!
Ever take an iPhone apart? You think the people that can't operate an ATM, or operate the self-service kiosk at the airport, are going to build THAT? We're a country that prides itself in being knuckle-dragging mouth breathers. None of this is coming to the US without full automation - and the only necessary personnel are programers and engineers.
Rating: 4 Votes
Keane16
50 months ago
What would be cool is if the world's most valuable company would use technology to assemble their devices instead of taking advantage of cost of living differences in the Third World. And don't even start with the "but these are good jobs that help people survive" or "the wages are fair for the country they are paid in."
This has already started happening.

"One factory has "reduced employee strength from 110,000 to 50,000 thanks to the introduction of robots", a government official told the South China Morning Post."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36376966

And the long game is to be as fully automised as possible...

"Dai Jia-peng, the general manager of Foxconn’s automation committee, says the company has a three-phase plan in place to automate its Chinese factories using software and in-house robotics units, known as Foxbots."

https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/30/14128870/foxconn-robots-automation-apple-iphone-china-manufacturing

Machines should be assembling everything by now, and tech companies should be leading the way.
If it was as easy as flicking a switch to make it happen I'm sure they would. These things take time. But it will happen.
Rating: 4 Votes

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