Apple Starts To Produce iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus in India Factory

Apple will start production of the iPhone 14 at Indian facilities (photo: Apple)

JAKARTA - Apple said that the company has started assembling its iPhone 14 models in India locally. The company's global partner Foxconn, will begin manufacturing the device at its Sriperumbudur facility near Chennai.

According to a report from Apple received by TechCrunch, this locally produced iPhone unit is targeted to go on sale in the country by the end of the year.

Apple actually started assembling smartphones locally in India in 2017, but since then until now, they have used manufacturing facilities in India only to assemble older generation handsets.

Analyst JP Morgan predicts that Apple will turn India into a global iPhone manufacturing hub by 2025. In a report earlier this month, he said Apple would move 5% of global iPhone 14 production to India by the end of 2022.

The move was made in an effort to expand its production capacity in the country to produce 25% of all iPhone models by 2025.

JP Morgan also said that the presence of investment from foreign production giants such as Apple Foxconn and Wistron and sufficient labor resources at competitive costs could make India a desirable location.

“India's iPhone supply chain has historically only supplied older models. Interestingly, Apple has requested that EMS vendors produce the iPhone 14/14 Plus models in India in Q4 2022, within two to three months of the start of production in Mainland China," the report said.

"We believe Apple is only producing iPhone 14/14 Plus models in India now due to the more complex camera module alignment of the iPhone Pro series and higher local market demand for the iPhone 14 series," he added.

Apple's rival, Samsung, identifies India as a major global manufacturing hub and has set up one of its largest factories in the country. Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi, which currently leads the market, as well as rivals Oppo, Vivo and OnePlus also locally assemble a number of their handsets in the country.