- Monday, April 28, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
US multinational company Apple Inc. exported iPhones from India worth more than $2.5 billion (£2.05 billion) between April and December, nearly double the figures registered in the previous fiscal year, suggesting how the company is accelerating a shift from China to its southern neighbour with geopolitical tensions growing, Bloomberg reported.
It said Foxconn Technology Group and Wistron Corp have each shipped over $1 billion (£822 million) of Apple’s marquee devices abroad in the first nine months of the 2022-23 fiscal year, citing informed sources.
Pegatron Corp., another major contract manufacturer for Apple, is also set to move about $500 million (£411 million) of the gadgets abroad by the end of the current month, the people said on the condition of anonymity.
The fast growing export numbers illustrate how Apple is ramping up operations outside of China, where problems at Foxconn’s main plant in Zhengzhou brought to the fore vulnerabilities in the American company’s supply chain and forced it to reduce output estimates.
That saw the situation worsening with a vanishing demand for electronics as consumers weigh the risks of a global recession.
Apple started assembling its latest iPhone models in India last year, marking a significant break from its practice of reserving much of that for big Chinese factories run by its main Taiwanese assemblers, including Foxconn.
While India still makes up just a fraction of iPhone output, the rising exports bode well for prime minister Narendra Modi’s plan to make the country an alternative to China as a world factory.
China’s Covid Zero policies and an episode of violence at the Zhengzhou plant — called iPhone City as the world’s biggest production center for the device — spoke about the dangers of relying on the country. While the country has dropped that approach to containing the virus, Apple and other global names are already trying to find alternative locations more than ever before.
India’s vast workforce, Modi’s backing, and a thriving local market make the country a prime candidate to take on more electronics manufacturing.
Foxconn, Apple’s largest supplier, kicked off building facilities in the country more than five years ago anticipating a need to extend its geographic range.
