Apple has started moving production of the iPhone 14 to India, as it moves some production away from China for the first time against a backdrop of Chinese Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns and geopolitical tensions between the US and the country’s communist government.
The Guardian reports, "A production line in Chennai has begun operation, assembling the iPhone 14 for the domestic Indian market. The move, which marks the first time the company has assembled iPhones outside of China in the same year they were released, is part of a plan to disentangle its manufacturing operations from the Chinese state."
This is an interesting global move of "de-risking" reliance on China amidst both international supply chain issues and geopolitical tensions with China and the West.
TechCrunch reports JP Morgan's analysts estimate that Apple will turn India into a global iPhone manufacturing hub by 2025 as it slowly cuts its reliance on China, where it has been producing the vast majority of its devices for over a decade.
Yet it's not just the iPhone. Nikkei Asia reports Apple has asked suppliers to shift headphone production (both of AirPods and Beats products) to India. This follows a move of headphone production from China to Vietnam: AirPods were one of the earliest Apple products to be mass-produced outside of China, with production shifting to there in 2019 amid fallout from the U.S.-China trade war.
More than 70 million AirPod units are shipped each year, second only to the iPhone among Apple products in terms of shipment volume. The majority of Beats production has also shifted to Vietnam since last year, sources told Nikkei Asia.
- Asia Media Centre
