Apple Inc. has hinted at plans to shift assembly of all iPhones sold in the United States of America to India by as soon as next year in a pivot away from China, according to the Financial Times.
The news platform reports that the proposed move by Apple Inc. is due to untamed trade hostilities between the US and China.
Accordingly, the push will likely be further and faster than investors are anticipating, with a goal to source the entirety of over 60 million iPhones sold in the U.S. annually from India by end-2026, the FT report said, citing people familiar with the matter.
The target will entail doubling India’s iPhone output in just over a year—a fraction of the time Apple spent developing its production line in China, which took nearly two decades of heavy investment.
According to the FT, Apple plans to source from India the more than 60m iPhones sold in the US annually by the end of 2026 – a commitment that would require more than doubling iPhone assembly in India.
Apple has already been ramping up production in India and diverting iPhones assembled in the country to the US. The company’s main Indian suppliers, Foxconn and Tata, shipped almost $2bn worth of handsets to their largest market in March as Apple sought to offset the impact of looming tariffs.
It also chartered cargo flights to ferry 600 tonnes of iPhones – or as many as 1.5m devices – to the US to ensure sufficient inventory in an important market. Apple has three plants in India and last month temporarily extended operations to Sunday working at the biggest Foxconn India factory in Chennai.
In the past years, Apple has become heavily reliant on China as a manufacturing powerhouse, where the company manufactures several of its products through third parties such as Foxconn.
More than 5o% of Apple’s Mac products and 80% of its iPads are assembled in China as well, according to US investment bank Evercore. Apple watches are largely built in Vietnam.
However, the reliance leaves the company exposed to steep trade tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump against the world’s second-largest economy, China.
Apple was seen rushing shipments of iPhones from India earlier in April, after President Trump kick-started a renewed trade war with China.
While Trump did exempt electronics imports from China, he clarified that this was a temporary move and that he will tariff electronics imports separately.
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Recall Trump slapped China with 145 percent tariffs; however, in a tit-for-tat, China retaliated with a 125 percent levy. Concerns over Apple’s exposure may result in as much as $700 billion in losses from the tech giant’s market capital.
Apple has been steadily building its production capacity in India through contract manufacturers Tata Electronics and Foxconn. These efforts accelerated in recent years, especially after the company faced some production disruptions in China due to civil unrest.
Analysts do not expect Apple to move iPhone production to the US, despite the White House insisting that the manufacturing of an American tech product will ultimately return home. The US president’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told reporters that Apple’s recent announcement of a $500bn investment indicated a US-made iPhone was possible.
“If Apple didn’t think the US could do it, they probably wouldn’t have put up that big chunk of change,” she said.
However, experts have played down the prospect. Wedbush Securities, a US financial firm, said the cost of an American-made iPhone would more than treble if production was shifted to the US.
“If consumers want a $3,500 iPhone we should make them in New Jersey or Texas or another state,” the Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said.
Fraser Johnson, a professor at Ivey business school in Canada and an Apple supply chain expert, said last month that the US economy did not have the facilities or the flexible labour to assemble iPhones.
“To train 200,000-300,000 people to come in and assemble iPhones is simply not practical,” he said.
In a related development, the Financial Times on Thursday had reported that Chinese factories slowed production in recent times and sent workers home as US tariffs bit.
While the US hinted at trade talks with China, Beijing announced otherwise.