Apple's Production In India Expected To Increase From 7 Per Cent To 25 Per Cent: Piyush Goyal

The manufacturing of Apple iPhones in India is expected to increase to 25 per cent, Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, Textiles and Consumer Affairs, Piyush Goyal said on Tuesday.

The manufacturing of Apple iPhones in India is expected to increase to 25 per cent, Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, Textiles and Consumer Affairs, Piyush Goyal said on Tuesday, according to news agency ANI. Currently, seven per cent of iPhones are assembled in India, which is expected to grow further.  

"India's exports were about $500 billion in 2020-21 which increased to $776 billion in 2022-23. A target has been set to take India's exports to $2 trillion by 2030... 7% of Apple's production is happening in India today, which is expected to increase to 25%," Piyush Goyal was quoted as saying by ANI.

This development comes days after Bank of America (BoFA) said in a report that Apple may shift over 18 per cent of its global production of iPhones to India by 2024-25 (FY25) on the back of the government’s production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for mobile phones. India's share in global iPhone production in FY23 stood at 7 per cent. It was negligible before the PLI scheme was notified first on October 6, 2020. In the same year, the central government approved Foxconn Hon Hai, Wistron, and Pegatron, all of which are Apple's contract manufacturers in India.

Currently, Apple iPhones are manufactured in India along with the tech giant's 14 vendors in India as compared to 151 in China. Most of Apple's vendors are located in South India, closer to the contract manufacturers, Foxconn and Pegatron (Tamil Nadu) and Wistron (Karnataka).

The report revealed that within two years of the PLI scheme, iPhone exports from India have risen to Rs 40,000 crore in FY23. It was Rs 11,000 crore in FY22. This is expected to accelerate further as it has already reached a run-rate of $1 billion of monthly exports since February this year.

However, the tech giant will not apply for the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme 2.0 for laptops and computer hardware, quoting sources aware of the development, The Hindu Businessline reported earlier this month. According to the report, the central government launched the scheme recently with a budgetary allocation of Rs 17,000 crore aiming to convince companies like Dell, Samsung, and Apple to manufacture IT hardware in India.