Apple currently manufactures iPhone 11, 12, 13 and 14 models at the Foxconn facility while iPhone SE and iPhone 12 are assembled at the Wistron factory, in India.
Apple Inc. wants India to account for up to 25% of its production from the current 5%-7%, Piyush Goyal, minister of commerce and industry told a conference on Monday.
“Apple, another success story,” Piyush Goyal said, pitching India as a competitive manufacturing destination. “They are already at about 5-7% of their manufacturing in India. If I am not mistaken, they are targeting to go up to 25% of their manufacturing. They launched the most recent models from India, manufactured in India.”
Goyal did not say when Apple wants to meet the target. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment by news agencies.
The iPhone maker has reportedly been trying to move its manufacturing away from China. The company started manufacturing iPhone 14 in India in September 2022 at Foxconn’s Sriperumbudur facility situated on the outskirts of Chennai. Media reports had then stated that the tech giant wanted to shift 25% of its entire iPhone production line to India.
It began its iPhone assembly in India in 2017, with iPhone SE, via Wistron and later with Foxconn, in line with the Indian government’s push for local manufacturing. The tech giant manufactures some of its most advanced iPhones in the country, including the iPhone 11, iPhone 12, and iPhone 13, in addition to iPhone 14 at the Foxconn facility while iPhone SE and iPhone 12 are assembled at the Wistron factory.
The minister for electronics and information technology (MeitY), Ashwini Vaishnaw, tweeted on Monday that Apple’s exports from India had hit $1 billion in December.
