Apple Partnering With Foxconn to Build High-End iPhone Models in India Next Year

Following the iPhone SE and iPhone 6s, Apple will begin assembling its high-end iPhones in India sometime in 2019, according to a new report today by Reuters. Instead of Wistron, Foxconn will build the high-end iPhones, and these models are said to be the most expensive flagship devices offered by Apple, including the iPhone X family.

apple india
Local sources state that the work will occur in Foxconn's plant in Sriperumbudur town in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. Foxconn will reportedly invest 25 billion Indian rupees ($356 million) to expand the plant, part of which will be focused on the production of the flagship iPhones in India. The investment is estimated to create as many as 25,000 jobs. The report doesn't say whether these high-end iPhones will be sold in the Indian market or elsewhere in the world.

Earlier this year, Apple revamped its India strategy in order to stay afloat in the country's smartphone market. This revamped strategy includes better and longer-lasting retail deals with higher sales targets, the debut of official Apple retail stores in India, an overhaul of the company's relationship with independent retailers, and improving apps and services for local users. This is said to include a new version of Apple Maps aimed at Indian users to launch by 2020.

The expansion of high-end iPhone assembly outside of China could also be an attempt by Apple to "limit the impact" of a trade war between the United States and China:

For Apple, widening assembly beyond China is critical to mitigate the risks of the Sino-U.S. trade war. Foxconn, the world’s biggest electronics contract manufacturer, is considering setting up a factory in Vietnam, Vietnamese state media reported this month. If that goes ahead, it will be one of the biggest recent steps by a major company to secure an additional production base outside of China.

Foxconn has previously admitted the China-U.S. trade spat was its biggest challenge and that its senior executives were making plans to counter the impact. “Widening iPhone manufacturing in India through Foxconn will allow Apple to hedge the risk of any new U.S. trade policies,” said Navkendar Singh, an associate research director at International Data Corporation.

Still, the company has struggled in the country due to the high price of its iPhones. Just last week, The Wall Street Journal published a report about Apple's iPhone sales in India. According to the paper, Apple has had "little success so far" in terms of growth in India, due to the price-sensitive market that has more than 75 percent of smartphones priced below $250.

Tags: Foxconn, India

Popular Stories

iPhone 17 Pro Blue Feature Tighter Crop

iPhone 17 Pro Launching in Three Months With These 12 New Features

Saturday June 14, 2025 5:45 pm PDT by
The iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are three months away, and there are plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of June 2025:Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone X through iPhone 14 Pro have a...
apple watch ultra 2 new black

Apple Watch Ultra 3 Finally Coming After Two-Year Hiatus

Monday June 16, 2025 8:45 am PDT by
Apple will finally deliver the Apple Watch Ultra 3 sometime this year, according to analyst Jeff Pu of GF Securities Hong Kong (via @jukanlosreve). The analyst expects both the Apple Watch Series 11 and Apple Watch Ultra 3 to arrive this year (likely alongside the new iPhone 17 lineup, if previous launches are anything to go by), according to his latest product roadmap shared with...
Logitech Logo Feature

Logitech Announces Two New Accessories for WWDC

Friday June 13, 2025 7:22 am PDT by
Alongside WWDC this week, Logitech announced notable new accessories for the iPad and Apple Vision Pro. The Logitech Muse is a spatially-tracked stylus developed for use with the Apple Vision Pro. Introduced during the WWDC 2025 keynote address, Muse is intended to support the next generation of spatial computing workflows enabled by visionOS 26. The device incorporates six degrees of...
iPadOS 26 App Windowing

Apple Explains Why iPads Don't Just Run macOS

Friday June 13, 2025 7:46 am PDT by
iPadOS 26 allows iPads to function much more like Macs, with a new app windowing system, a swipe-down menu bar at the top of the screen, and more. However, Apple has stopped short of allowing iPads to run macOS, and it has now explained why. In an interview this week with Swiss tech journalist Rafael Zeier, Apple's software engineering chief Craig Federighi said that iPadOS 26's new Mac-like ...
iphone 16 pro models 1

17 Reasons to Wait for the iPhone 17

Thursday June 12, 2025 8:58 am PDT by
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models simultaneously, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 17 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect from Apple's 2025 smartphone lineup. If you skipped the iPhone...
terminal macos tahoe

Apple's Terminal App Gets Colorful Redesign in macOS Tahoe

Monday June 16, 2025 4:12 am PDT by
Apple's Terminal app is getting a visual refresh in macOS Tahoe, and it's the first notable design update since the command-line tool debuted. The updated Terminal will support 24-bit color and Powerline fonts, according to Apple's State of the Platforms presentation at WWDC25. The app will also adopt the new Liquid Glass aesthetic with redesigned themes that align with macOS 26's broader...
apple watch ultra snow

6 Features Coming to the Apple Watch Ultra 3

Tuesday February 25, 2025 9:00 am PST by
The Apple Watch Ultra 3 is expected to launch later this year, arriving two years after the previous model with a series of improvements. While no noticeable design changes are expected for the third generation since the company tends to stick with the same Apple Watch design through three generations before changing it, there are a series of internal upgrades on the way. By the time the ...
iOS 26 Feature

Apple Seeds Revised iOS 26 Developer Beta to Fix Battery Issue

Friday June 13, 2025 10:15 am PDT by
Apple today provided developers with a revised version of the first iOS 26 beta for testing purposes. The update is only available for the iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 models, so if you're running iOS 26 on an iPhone 14 or earlier, you won't see the revised beta. Registered developers can download the new beta software through the Settings app on each device. The revised beta addresses an...

Top Rated Comments

mozumder Avatar
85 months ago
Probably a good idea to generally diversify manufacturing away from a single authoritarian country.
Score: 27 Votes (Like | Disagree)
AngerDanger Avatar
85 months ago
Timmothy Cook: " We're so proud! There have never been more iPhones being made in India!"
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
JosephAW Avatar
85 months ago
India is the only place where you can still get an iPhone SE and iPhone 6S since they are still being manufactured there. They need to export the iPhone SE to America then sales would be booming there.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
magicschoolbus Avatar
85 months ago
Fantastic news. Can’t wait to have an iPhone made in India and not made in China.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Mindcrime Avatar
85 months ago
My company (HP) has a big presence in India - it's a great country, but holy hell getting electronics in out of customs is a world class headache. There are regulations in India for electronics that are extreme.

Also, we have to build special ruggedness platforms to account for the Indian environment. Failure rate there is astronomical thanks to humidity and dust (and dust and dust and dust).
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Jim Avatar
85 months ago
As the most populous democracy in the world it is infinitely more desirable for any Apple product to me made there versus the evermore 1984ish China. I have all the latest Apple products but doubt I will purchase anything else made in China if given a choice. India would be my first choice because of the quality of the folks that I have met from there.
[doublepost=1545934149][/doublepost]
I thought this couldn't be possible?

Most of the components are manufactured in China, so assembling the phones half-a-world away would create huge logistical challenges.

China has a far bigger supply of appropriately-qualified engineers

China's factories are far bigger and more nimble
silliness at its best. Prejudice at its worst. Anything can be made anywhere given the resources and the ability of the market to absorb the cost. China is proving more and more ... anti Western in it's thinking and since it is the fuel for their economy that is rather strange. Leave them alone for a while and they will ruminate on the situation. If you are going to be a world power, one needs to acknowledge that the world exists. The US may have it's faults but we acknowledge that the Chinese New Year and the Jewish New Year exist. We even post the beginnings of newer holidays such as Kwanza, etc. Santa exists if you want to enjoy the benefits of that spending season ...
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)