Apple Inc. exported more than $2.5 billion of iPhones from India from April to December, nearly twice the previous fiscal year's total, underscoring how the US tech giant is accelerating a shift from China with geopolitical tensions on the rise.
Foxconn Technology Group and Wistron Corp. have each shipped more than $1 billion of Apple's marquee devices abroad in the first nine months of the fiscal year ending March 2023, people familiar with the matter said. Pegatron Corp., another major contract manufacturer for Apple, is on track to move about $500 million of the gadgets overseas by the end of January, the people said, asking not to be identified revealing private information.
Apple's rapidly growing export numbers illustrate how it is ramping up operations outside of China, where chaos at Foxconn's main plant in Zhengzhou exposed vulnerabilities in the Cupertino-headquartered company's supply chain and forced it to trim output estimates. That compounded a broader problem with evaporating demand for electronics as consumers weigh the risks of a global recession.
Apple, the world's most valuable company, began assembling its latest iPhone models in India only last year, a significant break from its practice of reserving much of that for giant Chinese factories run by its main Taiwanese assemblers including Foxconn.
While India makes up just a fraction of iPhone output, rising exports bode well for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's plan to make the country an alternative to China as factory to the world.
China's Covid Zero policies and an episode of violence at the Zhengzhou plant — nicknamed iPhone City as the world's biggest production center for the device — laid bare the dangers of relying on the country. While Beijing has
Read more on tech.hindustantimes.com