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iPhone 17 to Be Assembled in India as Apple Aims to Further Diversify Supply Chain

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Introductory production on the standard iPhone 17 will start in India in the second half of 2025, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Kuo says that new product introduction (NPI) for the iPhone 17 will happen in India, marking the first time that Apple begins development of a new iPhone outside of China.

apple-india.jpg

Apple will opt to assemble the standard iPhone 17 in India because it has a "lower difficulty" design that will minimize risk. Apple has been manufacturing older iPhones and other devices in India since for several years now in an effort to move more of its manufacturing out of China. Apple has slowly started giving factories in India more responsibility, and began iPhone 14 production in the country just a few weeks after the device launched in September 2022. iPhone 15 production started even earlier, with factories in the country assembling the base iPhone 15 model prior to launch, but assembly still started in China first.

Apple works with Foxconn, Pegatron, and Tata (new owner of Wistron) to manufacture iPhones in India, with Foxconn handling 75 to 80 percent of the device assembly. Foxconn has invested more than $500 million in India to ramp up its manufacturing capabilities.

As of now, Kuo believes that 12 to 14 percent of global iPhone shipments are made in India, with that proportion to increase to 20 to 25 percent by 2024. In addition to allowing Apple to move manufacturing away from China, increasing production in India provides Apple with an opportunity to strengthen its relationship with the Indian government. India is a key market for Apple due to growing demand for Apple products in the country.

Apple in 2023 opened its first retail stores in Mumbai, but online sales have been available in India since 2020.

Article Link: iPhone 17 to Be Assembled in India as Apple Aims to Further Diversify Supply Chain
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2023/11/01/iphone-17-assembly-india/
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Fuzzball84

macrumors 68000
Apr 19, 2015
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They had no choice. The way relations are between certain countries… they have to work on redundancy in where their devices are manufactured.

I’d guess in 10 to 20 years time, robotics and AI will have progressed that much further that you could automate pretty much all of this. Then it will come to where the energy is cheapest to run operations, the distance for transport, where the raw resources are coming from. It will not be about people anymore.
 
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jdavid_rp

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Fuzzball84 said:
They had no choice. The way relations are between certain countries… they have to work on redundancy in where their devices are manufactured.

I’d guess in 10 to 20 years time, robotics and AI will have progressed that much further that you could automate pretty much all of this. Then it will come to where the energy is cheapest to run operations, the distance for transport, where the raw resources are coming from. It will not be about people anymore.
Click to expand...
I think the actual system is already focused on the benefits and not the people
 
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Fuzzball84

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Zc456 said:
Honestly, the sole dependency on a single country to manufacture everything was just stupid to begin with.
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But it happened with tech time and time again… remember when everything used to be made in Japan… then it was made in China.. and now increasingly I see other countries appear… I think it’s at a point now where not one country will dominate as much as has happened in the past 20 to 40 years.
 
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philstubbington

philstubbington

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Fuzzball84 said:
They had no choice. The way relations are between certain countries… they have to work on redundancy in where their devices are manufactured.

I’d guess in 10 to 20 years time, robotics and AI will have progressed that much further that you could automate pretty much all of this. Then it will come to where the energy is cheapest to run operations, the distance for transport, where the raw resources are coming from. It will not be about people anymore.
Click to expand...
I can’t remember where the original article was, but it’s interesting that Australia and Chile have the largest reserves of Lithium. I seem to remember reading that Chile have invested heavily in Australia too.

https://www.spglobal.com/commodityi...ralian-junior-as-chile-rolls-out-lithium-plan
 
C

CarAnalogy

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Jun 9, 2021
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Zc456 said:
Honestly, the sole dependency on a single country to manufacture everything was just stupid to begin with.
Click to expand...

In the early days they had no choice. China basically has megacities based around electronics component industrial manufacturing and assembly. They were the only place to get that stuff. Still are. Only thing that appears to be changing is more final assembly.
 
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SoldOnApple

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Jul 20, 2011
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I bet 20 years from now minimum wage for factory workers in China will be a lot more than India. China will be the world’s most valuable economy by then and they tend to take care of their people. China will compete on quality rather than just price.
 
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jz0309

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CarAnalogy said:
In the early days they had no choice. China basically has megacities based around electronics component industrial manufacturing and assembly. They were the only place to get that stuff. Still are. Only thing that appears to be changing is more final assembly.
Click to expand...
“We” (the US and Europe) made China what it is today, and back in the 89s when it started - it was deemed a good idea by the political forces… and we would not be where we are today (from a technology perspective) if it hadn’t been that way…
 
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Sasparilla

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Jul 6, 2012
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Good to see Apple doing this and has gotten this far - the base iPhone 17 will be launch produced in India (1st time out of China). Expecting 20 - 24% produced in India next year, that's alot of progress, good to see.

Looks like Apple's exec's have woken up and are going to avoid the nightmare scenario regarding China and Taiwan in say 2027 or so and Apple literally having products only made and cut off in China at the time. Would have been better earlier, but Apple is definitely making good progress now.
 
XboxEvolved

XboxEvolved

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Aug 22, 2004
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What happened to all that production they were supposed to do in Arizona and Wisconsin with Foxconn? And don’t tell me that Apple couldn’t make a factory in oooh I dunno Kentucky, where all their glass originally came from and you have such things as the biggest Toyota factory in the world, and the big Amazon distribution center in the world, along with the biggest UPS in United States. I know Apple employees check this forum out, maybe carry this message over to one of your bosses…get some factories In KY. 😎
 
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klasma

klasma

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Jun 8, 2017
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Zc456 said:
Honestly, the sole dependency on a single country to manufacture everything was just stupid to begin with.
Click to expand...
Not sure the dependency on a single planet is any better? Seems awfully fragile.
 
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