Apple to make iPhones in India – The Saturn Herald

Anand Ambani of Jio 4G services meeting Tim Cook

Apple will soon have “Made in India” iPhones, from a factory in Bengaluru ( South India). The Karnataka Government issued a release welcoming Apple’s proposal “to commence initial manufacturing operations” in the state.

India will be the third country globally to assemble iPhones., after the state officials met with Priya Balasubramaniam, Vice President, iPhone Operations based in Cupertino, Dheeraj Chugh, director, iPhone operations, and Ali Khanafer, Senior managers –Government affairs ( India Middle East), and other several senior Apple executives.

Taiwanese company Wistron, OEM of Apple, will make iPhones out of its facility in the city’s industrial hub of Peenya. Apple uses third parties across 28 countries to make parts for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac and has 766 suppliers of which 346 are based in China, 126 in Japan and 69 in the US and one in India, Flextronics in Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu.

Tim Cook who paid his maiden visit to India as Apple’s CEO said last year “all-time record results as 2.6 million iPhones were shipped to India and now account for 62 percent of all premium smartphones shipped to the country.

“Despite the demonetisation move in India, that created lots of economic pressure there last quarter,” cook said in the earning call “ We had all-time record revenue results, and so we were very happy about that.”

When Tim cook visited India last he was seen there with Anant Ambani son of Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, whose Jio 4G service is taken off and is proving to be a game changer for mobile internet in India by end of 2016.

Such high-speed networks would “unleash the power of the iPhone” according to Tim Cook.

Steve jobs came to India as a backpacking hippie looking for answers in the mid-1970s, When India was in as state of emergency with Coca-Cola, IBM was thrown out as they using India merely as an assembly point.

Back in May 2016, India accounted for only 1% of global iPhone sales and Apple’s share of India; mobile handset sales was 1.5%. China, on the other hand, is the second largest market in the world for Apple after the United States. Apple announced that it would invest $1bn in Chinese ride-hailing app Didi Chuxing las year, to better understand the Chinese market.

Now the Chinese economy is struggling, and the decline of phone sales there contributed to Apple’s revenue loss. iPhone accounts for nearly two-thirds of Apple’s global revenue.