Mass production of iphones set to start in India

THE INDIAN FACTORY WOULD SERVE LOCAL AND EXPORT MARKETS BY SEPTEMBER, WHEN APPLE ANNOUNCES ITS NEXT IPHONE MODELS

WASHINGTON: Foxconn Technology Group chairman Terry Gou said the iphone will go into mass production in India this year, a shift for the largest assembler of Apple’s handsets that has long concentrated production in China.

Gou said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has invited him to India as his Taiwanese company plans its expansion in the country. Apple has had older phones produced at a plant in Bengaluru for several years, but now will expand manufacturing to more recent models. Bloomberg News reported this month that Foxconn is ready to start trial production of the latest iphones in the country before it starts full-scale assembly at its factory outside Chennai.

“In the future we will play a very important role in India’s smartphone industry,” Gou said at an event in Taiwan. “We have moved our production lines there.”

India has become the fastest-growing smartphone market in the world, while China stagnates and Apple loses share to local competitors such as Huawei Technologies and Xiaomi. Apple has been a minor player in India, in part because of its high prices, but local manufacturing would help the Cupertino, California-based company avoid import duties of 20%.

“For Foxconn, the China market for iphones is saturated, and labour costs are three times higher compared with India,” said Karn Chauhan, a Gurugram-based analyst at Counterpoint Research.

“India is still an emerging smartphone market, it has a lot of potential domestically and could serve as an export hub for the region.”