Apple would like to have more devices produced in India and become less dependent on the Chinese supplier industry. As reported by The Financial Times, but so far it has not been as successful as hoped. To speed up the process, the Cupertino-based company also sent engineers and designers to India to oversee production for weeks and months.
Apple has had some iPhones made in India since 2017, but the highest-end Max models are still mostly made in China because the suppliers there are more experienced. If you now believe The Financial Times, then there are persistent quality problems in India in the manufacture of individual components: For example, in a factory for iPhone housings in Hosur, only every second unit produced is currently actually usable. The yield is therefore only 50%.
Apparently, Apple’s partners also approach things differently. In China, US employees had realistically expected that the Chinese suppliers would be able to fulfill certain tasks after a few weeks – but in some cases they would have fulfilled the requirements very quickly the next day. This approach is not found in India. The appropriate infrastructure is also lacking.
It also happened in India that suppliers made big promises to new partners after signing the agreement, but then showed little flexibility and fell far short of the high expectations. But Apple itself will probably have to adapt to the fragmented bureaucracy in India.
In India, the Tata company, among others, is striving to intensify its partnership with Apple – and the Indian government also wants that. In addition, Apple not only wants to produce more in India, but also wants to sell it. But there is still a long way to go before everything runs as smoothly as one would like it to.
Transparency: This article contains affiliate links. Clicking on it will take you directly to the provider. If you decide to make a purchase there, we will receive a small commission. Nothing changes in the price for you. Partner links have no influence on our reporting.
