Apple is gearing up for simultaneous production of the iPhone 17 in both China and India, despite apparent attempts by the Chinese government to disrupt this.
Achieving day one assembly in India has long been a key objective for Apple’s work in reducing its dependence on China as a manufacturing hub, but has never before been achieved …
Apple’s goal of simultaneous production
The vast majority of iPhones are still assembled in China, but Apple has for many years been working on boosting the number of phones made in other countries. India is the company’s secondary manufacturing hub, with Apple reportedly aiming to achieve 50% of iPhone production there within the next couple of years.
A key milestone would be to begin manufacturing the latest iPhone line-up on the same date in both India and China. Apple had hoped to do so with the iPhone 16, but wasn’t quite able to pull it off, with Indian assembly starting a few weeks late.
Apple now hopes to achieve this with the iPhone 17 line-up.
Foxconn preparing for this
India’s Economic Times suggests that key assembly partner Foxconn is now preparing for this, by shipping components to the country ready for the next phase: trial production. This is the point at which small volumes of iPhones are assembled on the actual production lines, to ensure that everything works as expected.
Foxconn has started importing components from China to India for assembling the upcoming iPhone 17, showed customs data seen by ET. The components imported so far could be meant for trial production, according to industry experts […]
Various components and sub-assemblies such as the display assembly, cover glass, mechanical housing and integrated rear camera modules began arriving in India last month, as per the customs data.
Trial production represents the final point at which any unexpected glitches in the assembly line can be corrected, and generally takes place around two months before launch – that is, right about now.
Mass production then follows, starting in August in order to build up stocks ready for launch demand in September.
Given increasing uncertainty over tariffs on imports into the US from China, Apple is hoping that India will be able to manufacture enough iPhones to meet all American demand.
Chinese interference
The Chinese government is understandably unhappy at the prospect of losing manufacturing business to India, and has reportedly been taking three steps to disrupt the process. One of those was making it harder for Chinese engineers to travel to India.
Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported a mystery recall of Chinese engineers from India.
The bulk of Foxconn’s Chinese staff at iPhone plants in southern India have been told to fly back in a move that began about two months ago, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named as the information is private. More than 300 Chinese workers have left, and mostly support staff from Taiwan remain in India, one of the people said.
Given the years of work Apple has put into training Chinese engineers, this is where the bulk of iPhone manufacturing expertise is now to be found, making their work crucial to expanding operations in India, especially with brand-new iPhone models.
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