Apple doubles iPhone output from India to $14 billion

Apple doubled the production of its iPhones in India last fiscal year as it pushed to diversify the production of its devices away from China, Bloomberg reported.

The iPhone maker assembled $14 billion worth of its flagship smartphone in the country and today makes about 1 in 7 of its devices in India, the report said, citing unidentified familiar with the matter.

“Bharat becoming a global manufacturing hub!” electronics and information technology minister Ashwini Vaishnaw posted on X (formerly Twitter), along with a card which read that iPhone production in India in the third year of the government launching its production-linked incentives (PLI) policy reached $14 billion.

The post said the scheme has created 150,000 direct jobs and 300,000 indirect jobs since 2021, adding that 14% of global iPhone production has shifted to India.

Meanwhile, Apple’s ecosystem of component producers and distributors may directly onboard about 500,000 employees over the next three years, The Economic Times reported this week, citing unidentified people aware of the company’s plans.

Earlier this week, Reuters had reported that Taiwanese electronics maker Pegatron was in talks with Tata Electronics Pvt. Ltd to sell its only iPhone manufacturing facility in India to the Indian firm.

Apple’s iPhones had surpassed Samsung devices to become the best-selling smartphone devices last year, ending the South Korean firm’s 13-year reign at the top, data from the International Data Corporation (IDC) showed.