The report first surfaced on Gadgets360 and it said that neither Apple nor Foxconn have confirmed the news yet. While Apple is maintaining silence on the matter, Foxconn has said that it does not make comments on customers or their products. If Apple expands its local assembly, will help the company save high taxes that have been levied on devices that imports. By doing this, Apple will also be meeting the local source norms that are required to open its own store in India. Apple has millions of loyalists in India. However, the exorbitant pricing of its latest iPhones has limited the company’s market share to 1% and this has given an advantage to its rivals like OnePlus. According to a previous report in Reuters, the local unit of the Hon Hai Precision Industry Co or Foxconn, would start assembling devices from the iPhone X line. The report also added that the assembly will begin in Tamil Nadu. It is worth mentioning that Apple assembles its lower-cost iPhone SE, iPhone 6S and iPhone 7 models in India in Wistron’s unit in Bengaluru. Speaking on the Apple’s iPhone X-series assembly in India, Rushabh Doshi of Canalys was quoted by Gadgets360 saying, “Local production will give Apple the leeway to play with the margins of their distributors and indirectly price their phones lower.” We should mention that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has been trying to position India as a hub for manufacturing smartphones. Success has been seen with this initiative as major technology companies like Samsung and Oppo have ramped up their operations in the country. By getting more of its manufacturing and assembly to India, Apple will not only be able to avoid tariffs but will also be able to reduce the impact of the trade are between the United States and China on itself. It is worth mentioning that some of the iPhones that have been assembled in Wistron’s plant in India, like iPhone 6S and iPhone 7, have reportedly been exported to some markets in Europe. So, Apple could also opt to do this with other iPhones once it gets the production here.
