Apple plans to ramp up production in India, says minister Piyush Goyal

Apple Inc. plans to ramp up its production in India, making it accountable for 25 per cent from the current levels of 5-7 per cent, Minister of Commerce and Industry and Minister of Consumer Affairs Piyush Goyal said on Monday while addressing a press conference.

"Apple, another success story," minister Goyal said, pitching India as a competitive manufacturing destination. "Apple is already at about 5-7 per cent of their manufacturing in India. If I am not mistaken, they are targeting to go up to 25 per cent of their manufacturing. They launched the most recent models from India, manufactured in India," he added. However, Minister Goyal did not mention a timeline for the revised target by the iPhone maker.

An Apple spokesperson declined to comment on the minister's remark.

This comes after the Cupertino-based company shifted its focus to India as its prime manufacturers and assembling plants in China faced a complete shutdown in 2022 owing to the country's zero covid policy. This triggered a global supply crunch for its newly launched flagship phones, iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro. Meanwhile, in India Apple has been looking to expand its production as well as retail.

India's Tata group has been partnering with Apple and its partners for manufacturing and retails services in India. The salt-to-software conglomerate has been in talks with the factory’s owner, Taiwan’s Wistron Corp., for months, and is looking to complete the purchase by the end of March 2023.

Wistron is one of three Taiwanese iPhone manufacturers in India, along with Foxconn and Pegatron Corp. It has sought to diversify its business beyond thin-margin iPhone manufacturing into areas such as servers, agreeing to sell its iPhone production business in China to a competitor in 2020.

Wistron’s 2.2 million-square-foot factory is located just over 30 miles (50 kilometers) east of Bangalore. If the acquisition goes through, Tata will take over all its eight iPhone lines, as well as the plant’s 10,000 workers, including a couple of thousand engineers. Wistron would continue as a service partner for iPhones in India.

Meanwhile, Tata group is also foraying into the retail aspect with Infiniti Retail which introduced its plans to open 100 stores across the country that will only sell Apple products.