Apple Now Assembles 14% of iPhones in India

Apple now produces as much as 14% of its iPhones in India, indicating the company's accelerating efforts to diversify beyond China (via Bloomberg).

iphone 14 india
The figure accounts for $14 billion of assembled iPhones in the country, or about 1 in 7 of the company's flagship devices, a doubling of production compared to the last fiscal year. Models assembled in India include the iPhone 12 through to the latest iPhone 15, excluding premium Pro and Pro Max models.

Apple has been setting up ‌‌iPhone‌‌ manufacturing hubs in India ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi began promoting his "Made in India" initiative, which requires that 30% of products sold by foreign companies be manufactured or produced within the country.

The Indian government says the growth in manufacturing has created 150,000 direct jobs at Apple's suppliers. That's a boon for Modi's administration, which has enticed foreign companies like Apple with financial incentives to realize its ambition for the country to become a global manufacturing hub.

Foxconn assembled nearly 67% and Pegatron around 17% of iPhones in India in the fiscal year ending March 2024, according to Bloomberg's sources. The remaining devices were produced by Wistron.

While China remains Apple's largest iPhone assembly base and biggest overseas market, it is also where Apple's revenues have been plummeting, due to the meteoric rise of local vendors such as Huawei and a government ban on the use of iPhones in state workplaces.

Apple's diversification away from China hints at the company's growing awareness of rising geopolitical tensions and the need for supply chain resilience in the face of potential disruption. The pivot to India also likely takes into account its fast-growing smartphone market – last year Apple also opened its first two stores there, in Mumbai and the capital New Delhi.

Popular Stories

streaming black friday 2025

Black Friday Streaming Deals Include Big Savings on Disney+, Hulu, Apple TV, and More

Monday November 24, 2025 8:03 am PST by
We've been focusing on deals on physical products over the past few weeks, but Black Friday is also a great time of year to purchase a streaming membership. Some of the biggest services have great discounts for new and select returning members this week, including Disney+, Hulu, Paramount+, Peacock, and more. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a...
Apple Foldable Thumb

Foldable iPhone to Debut These Three Breakthrough Features

Tuesday November 25, 2025 7:09 am PST by
Apple's first foldable iPhone is expected to launch alongside the iPhone 18 Pro models in fall 2026, and it's shaping up to include three standout features that could set it apart from the competition. The book-style foldable will reportedly feature an industry-first 24-megapixel under-display camera built into the inner display, according to a recent JP Morgan equity research report. That...
General Black Friday Deals 25 Red

Apple Black Friday Deals Available Now on AirPods, iPads, Accessories, and More

Friday November 21, 2025 8:48 am PST by
We're only a few days away from Black Friday, which will take place on Friday, November 28 in 2025. As always, this will be the best time of the year to shop for great deals, including popular Apple products like AirPods, iPad, Apple Watch, and more. In this article, the majority of the discounts will be found on Amazon. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When...
General Apps Messages Redux

Singapore Orders Changes to iMessage by December

Tuesday November 25, 2025 6:39 am PST by
Singapore has ordered Apple to block or filter messages on iMessage that impersonate government agencies, requiring the company to implement new anti-spoofing protections by December as part of efforts to curb rising online scams, the Straits Times reports. Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said that it had issued an Implementation Directive to Apple under the Online Criminal Harms...
iOS 26

iOS 26.2 Adds These New Features to Your iPhone

Thursday November 20, 2025 10:50 am PST by
iOS 26.2 is currently in beta testing. The upcoming update includes a handful of new features and changes on the iPhone, including a new Liquid Glass slider for the Lock Screen's clock, offline lyrics for Apple Music, and more. In a recent press release, Apple confirmed that iOS 26.2 will be released to all users in December, but it did not provide a specific release date. Keep reading...
maxresdefault

The MacRumors Show: iPhone 18 Pro Looks Like a Huge Upgrade

Friday November 21, 2025 9:10 am PST by
On this week's episode of The MacRumors Show, we talk through all of the new features and improvements expected to come to next year's iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max models. Subscribe to The MacRumors Show YouTube channel for more videos Apple's next-generation iPhones are less than ten months away and we already have a good idea about what to expect based on corroborated leaks, rumors,...
iOS 26 on Three iPhones

iOS 27 Will Reportedly Have Two Key Upgrades

Sunday November 23, 2025 8:48 am PST by
iOS 27 will reportedly have two major elements: quality improvements and new AI features. In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said that iOS 27 will be similar to Mac OS X Snow Leopard, in the sense that Apple is focused on improving "quality and underlying performance" over adding new features. Gurman said there is one exception to this rule, though, as he expects...
apple news banner

Apple News Loses CNN

Monday November 24, 2025 7:56 am PST by
American multinational news company CNN has abruptly pulled its content from Apple News, Semafor reports. CNN quietly removed its stories from Apple News over the weekend and there is no longer a feed from the network to subscribe to in the app. This effectively ends its distribution agreement with Apple while the two sides negotiate new terms. Discussions are apparently ongoing and CNN's...
Apple Foldable Thumb

Crease-Free iPhone Fold on Track for 2026 Launch as Development Advances

Monday November 24, 2025 10:25 am PST by
Apple is making progress on the development of the book-style foldable iPhone expected in 2026, according to a report from Chinese site UDN. The device has reportedly entered the engineering validation stage, and Apple is gearing up for mass production. Citing supply chain sources, UDN says that Apple has solved "the crease problem" that has plagued most foldable smartphones, and the...

Top Rated Comments

klasma Avatar
21 months ago

How about assemble in US or Europe?
That would probably push pricing into the Vision Pro region.
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
omenatarhuri Avatar
21 months ago
How about assemble in US or Europe?
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
tomtad Avatar
21 months ago

That would probably push pricing into the Vision Pro region.
Could be an interesting experiment. See if there's a market for patriots paying more
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bradman83 Avatar
21 months ago

I wonder how much it would actually add to the price if this happened. Wouldn't be in high cost locations, but lower cost for the region, but somewhere with technical staff, source of engineering graduates etc. in the same way that car production and high tech happens in Germany, parts of the US, parts of the UK etc.

Apple produces premium products. I'd pay a bit more (not sure how much) to know that my phone was at least made in a democracy. I'd love to buy an Indian iPhone. India's not perfect but it's a world away from China.

An iPhone with Assembled in Germany/Poland etc. would be great.
The challenge is less the actual labor costs as it is the support infrastructure. Steve Jobs spoke on this before his death when asked by former US President Barack Obama what it would take to move iPhone production to the US; he essentially said it would never happen for several reasons:


* Foxconn employs hundreds of thousands of workers and houses them in dormitories on site. That gives those companies the ability to ramp up and ramp down production at a moment's notice; workers deal with conditions most US and EU laborers would consider extremely difficult. The company literally owns you. But the end result is a level of speed and flexibility US and EU factories would have difficulty matching.
* China/East Asia is very good at churning out associate-level engineers who are needed to help overcome manufacturing and design challenges. Jobs noted that Apple needed 30,000 industrial engineers to support the factories at the time and that Apple would never be able to hire at that level in the US without major changes to our education system and a concerted push of people into STEM fields.
* China/East Asia has built up a huge supply chain whereby the majority of the components that go into an iPhone are produced in the same general area, reducing shipping costs. (Corning's various Gorilla Glass and its variants are one of the few US-sourced components that get sent to China for processing).
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Robert.Walter Avatar
21 months ago

Oh no… again scratched phones out of the box ? No thanks. I prefer China.


Attachment Image
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
klasma Avatar
21 months ago

I assume for the most part it means assemble, as it says, and not making the parts.
But why just assemble 14% of an iPhone in India?
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)