Cheaper iphone 14, made in India: Apple to introduce a host of changes

Apple will launch iPhone 14 at a physical event, after a two-year hiatus, on September 7. The event is called "Far Out". Apart from the new features, the new phone will bring in a host of new developments. For one, the price of the iPhone 14 may be less than that of the iPhone 13.
 
According to a report by TrendForce, it can be priced at around Rs 60,000. The 128GB model may be priced at $750 or Rs 59,600. The starting price of the iPhone 13's 128GB model was $799.  However, other phones in the iPhone 14 series may be priced at $850.
 
Apart from this, Apple will also reportedly set up a manufacturing facility in India to meet 85 per cent of the demand from the country under 'Make in India'. The imports of the iPhones are expected to fall to only 15 per cent. It was 50 per cent in 2019.
 
"Driven by a conducive policy environment and deepening manufacturing ecosystem in India, Apple's Made-in-India iPhones will potentially account for close to 85 per cent of its total iPhone production this year," Prabhu Ram, head, Industry Intelligence Group (IIG) at CyberMedia Research said.
 
With the iPhone 14 series, Apple's iPhone production in India is slated to jump from 7 million iPhones in 2021 to touch a new milestone of around 12 million iPhones in 2022, marking a significant growth of more than 71 per cent (year-on-year), Ram noted.
 
According to CMR, the contribution of domestic iPhone manufacturing in India jumped from 50 per cent in 2019 to 73 per cent in 2021.
 
In the meantime, the percentage of imported iPhones to India decreased from 50 per cent in 2019 to 45 per cent in 2020, 27 per cent in 2021 and around 15 per cent this year -- showing a significant Make in India boom for Apple.
 
According to industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple will start the production of the new iPhone 14 in India "about six weeks" later from China.
 
"The iPhone 14's mass production schedule in India this year is still about six weeks behind China, but the gap has improved significantly," Kuo said in a tweet this month.
 
Apple first started manufacturing iPhones in India in 2017, with iPhone SE.
 
The tech giant manufactures some of its most advanced iPhones in the country, including iPhone 11, iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 at the Foxconn facility while iPhone SE and iPhone 12 are being assembled at the Wistron factory.