Made In India iPhone XR Is Available For Purchase, Assembled In A Factory In Chennai

Reports last week revealed that Apple has already begun manufacturing its iPhone XR in India for sale in the local market.

Now we have images of shipping boxes (by Twitter user @newley) confirming that the device being made in India is out for sale across the country.

Twitter/@newley

The phone was earlier manufactured in China, but has seen a shift amidst trade tensions between US and China.

This will the the fourth iPhone to be manufactured in India. Apple was already known to manufacture its older smartphone models in India like the 6's 7's and the iPhone SE. However, the XR requires a lot more technical know-how due to which it was not being made in India, but now that's no longer the case.

The smartphone is made in Foxconn's manufacturing facility in Chennai. By shifting the manufacturing of Apple's cheapest Face ID smartphone in India, Apple saves from shelling out a hefty 20-percent import duty that was levied on phones manufactured outside of India.

Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has also gone ahead and slashed corporate tax rates to as low as 15% for companies looking to invest in India.

However, these financial easements won't translate in the pricing of the smartphone going any lower than it already has. The device's prices would only go down upon its successor arriving in the market, or during promotional offers.

While there is no information of the iPhone 11s and the 11 Pros to start manufacturing in India, we could expect that to happen soon too.

Reuters

Apple isn't the only international smartphone maker that plans to shift its focus from China to India to make its smartphones. Samsung too recently shut down its manufacturing facility in China after receiving a poor response to Samsung devices against Chinese smartphone makers like Oppo, Xiaomi and Huawei.

It opened the world's largest smartphone manufacturing facility in Noida, Uttar Pradesh that is capable of producing 120-million phones in a year. Samsung also has a manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu.