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Apple AirPods to be manufactured in India, says IT ministry: Report
Apple had reportedly asked its suppliers to move production of AirPods, Beat headphones to India.
Technology giant Apple's AirPods will be manufactured in India, Reuters quoted television channel CNBC TV 18 citing the ministry of electronics and information technology.
This comes days after Japanese website Nikkei had reported about the Cupertino-based technology giant asking the production of AirPods and Beat headphones to be moved to India.
Earlier, Apple had announced its plans to start manufacturing iPhone 14 in India, which it had launched on September 7 during its ‘Far Out’ event. The company is already manufacturing iPhone 13 in India and is also planning to assemble iPad tablets.
According to a Bloomberg report, iPhone exports from India have already crossed $1 billion in the past five months and are set to reach $2.5 billion in the next 12 months.
The iPhone maker's decision is part of its diversification from China. Countries like India, Mexico and Vietnam have become important to contract manufacturers supplying to American brands amid Covid-19 lockdowns in China and the tensions between Washington DC and Beijing.
Apple's Taiwanese contract manufacturers like Foxconn, Wistron Corp and Pegatron Corp currently manufacture iPhones at plants in southern India.
However, India is still far behind China in terms of iPhones being manufactured. In India, about 30 lakh iPhones were manufactured last year as compared to China's tally of 23 crore, Bloomberg reported.
Apple has built a supply chain for close to 20 years as per report. It is expected to take about eight years to move just 10 per cent of Apple's production capacity out of China, which manufactures 98 per cent of the company's iPhones.
But moving out of China, where Apple has built a deep supply chain for close to two decades, isn’t easy. A Bloomberg Intelligence analysis estimated it would take about eight years to move just 10% of Apple’s production capacity out of China, where roughly 98% of the company’s iPhones are being made.
