Apple might soon assemble the 2020 iPhone SE in India. If and when it happens, the Cupertino tech giant will be able to avoid a tax levied on the most affordable version of its iPhone imported into the country.
New reports indicate that the technology major has asked at least one of its suppliers in China to ship components for the 2020 iPhone SE to India.?
The 2020 iPhone SE components will be shipped to Apple's manufacturing partner in India, namely Wistron.?
Wistron also manufactured the first version of the iPhone SE in India until 2019. Then in July last year, the company stopped selling the version in the Indian market altogether, in addition to other models - iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, and iPhone 6s Plus.
Since long, Apple has been linked with rumours of shifting its manufacturing operations to India from China. The company has made efforts in the direction too, to the point that Apple CEO Tim Cook toured the country in 2016. These efforts, however, especially?targeted at a local production, have been sparse and wide.
iPhone SE is one success story though. Till its run since 2017, the pocket-friendly iPhone was manufactured in India, allowing the company to avoid considerable import taxes and hence keep the price affordable. This was part of the reason why the smartphone was a hit in the market. An AppleInsider report quotes a sale of $1.5 billion between March 2018 and March 2019 for Apple India.
The government has predicted more for the future. ¡°We expect Apple to produce up to $40 billion worth of smartphones, mostly for exports through its contract manufacturers Wistron and Foxconn, availing the benefits under the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme," a senior government official told ET back in May.
With this, Apple could become India's largest exporter as per experts cited in the report.
It further cites unnamed officials claiming Apple could shift ¡°nearly a fifth of its production capacity from China to India.¡± The possibility is a result of several meetings between Apple's senior executives and top Indian government officials over the past few months.