Apple looking to manufacture 25% of iPhones in India: Piyush Goyal

Will be significant ramp-up compared to 5-7% now

Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal on Monday said that American tech giant Apple was looking at significantly increasing its manufacturing base in India for iPhones.

He credited the conducive business environment, such as “transparent” government policies, without any hidden subsidy, for global firms choosing India as their manufacturing base.

“Apple has 5-7 per cent of their (the company’s) manufacturing in India. If I am not mistaken, they are targeting up to 25 per cent of their (iPhone) manufacturing (in India). They launched the most recent model from India, manufactured in India,” Goyal said at the inaugural session of the Inception Meeting of Business 20 (B20), the official G20 dialogue forum with the global business community, in Gandhinagar.

Goyal’s comments come amid reports that Apple’s exports from India hit $1 billion in December and its 14 Chinese suppliers have received initial approval from the Indian government to set up assembly plants in the country. This move shall help Apple diversify its production capabilities outside China.

India’s biggest iPhone manufacturing plant is being set up in Hosur near Bengaluru. The company currently gets iPhones manufactured by Foxconn, Wistron, and Pegatron in India.

The Union minister further said that while the world was worried about how India would cope with Covid-19, the country converted that fear into hope and emerged as a “bright spot in the global economy”.

“No other market in the world is as large as India today,” he said.
 

Goyal also said the rising interest rates were a result of the situation arising out of the pandemic, as well as the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. “We believe every strong step that we have taken to control inflation the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) will keep that in mind, and take steps,” he added.