With Pegatron, another contract manufacturer is now relocating parts of Apple’s iPhone production from China to India. According to a media report, assembly of the current iPhone 14 has now begun in a new factory in southern India.
The US financial news agency Bloomberg supports her report to informed circles. Apple has been in the process of geographically spreading its production in Asia for some time in order to become more independent from China. Before Pegatron, which is based in Taiwan, Foxconn also started iPhone 14 production in India in September. After a tentative start, which was primarily intended to serve the Indian market, the Californians are now expanding production to such an extent that India could also make a significant contribution to the global supply of iPhones.
Why Apple doesn’t only rely on China
Apple’s step should not only be seen in the light of China’s rigid zero-Covid policy, which is currently affecting the production of the iPhone 14 Pro models at the main plant in Zhengzhou, China. The smoldering trade conflict between China and the USA as well as the China-Taiwan conflict could also lead to significant additional production costs or even a widespread failure. In the past, punitive tariffs threatened to become a problem.
In the past, Apple had mainly outsourced its production to China. Favorable production costs, but above all the high availability of workers, made it possible to quickly manufacture large quantities of new products.
Manufacturing is not enough
China remains the main iPhone production country for the time being. The production of the Pro versions of the iPhone, which have been sold in large numbers, will remain exclusively in China for the time being. So far, mostly older models have been built in India. With the iPhone 14, production of the current model is now also starting there for the first time.
According to Bloomberg, the new Pegatron factory in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu employs more than 7,000 people. At the beginning of the year, production of the iPhone 12 started there. In addition to Pegatron and Foxconn, the contract manufacturer Wistron is also active in India and was the first of Apple’s partners to start in 2017.
Of course, building new manufacturing plants is not enough. In order to really become more independent of China, Apple would also have to outsource the manufacture of components to other countries.
(mki)
Tag: iphone design, iphone 14, apple iphone, iphone release