A significant boost to the ‘Make in India’ effort by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected as US tech giant Apple intends to begin New Product Introduction (NPI) of the regular iPhone 17 in India. This signifies that Apple is starting the process of creating a new iPhone outside the borders of China.
In the second half of 2025, first manufacturing of the basic iPhone 17 will begin in India, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Because the regular iPhone 17 has a “lower difficulty; design that will minimize risk,” the business has decided to produce it in India.
In an attempt to shift more of its manufacture away of China, the tech giant with headquarters in Cupertino, California, has been creating older iPhones and other products in India for a number of years.
Apple started assigning factories in India additional responsibilities gradually, and the iPhone 14 was produced there a few weeks after its September 2022 introduction. Production of the iPhone 15 began even earlier, with Chinese companies producing the basic model even before it was released. However, assembly still began in China.
Additionally, Ming-Chi Kuo said that 12–14% of iPhone sales worldwide are made in India, and by 2024, this percentage is expected to increase to 20–25%.
As a result, Apple is able to expand its production outside of China and, given the importance of India as a market for its goods, strengthens its relationship with the Indian government.
In related news, the Tata Group plans to begin producing Apple iPhones in India, with plans to ship them to international markets in the next 2.5 years.
India’s Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s PLI initiative and said that “Tata Companies will now start making iPhones from India for domestic and global markets within just two and a half years.”
