According to an unnamed government official mentioned in the new report, Apple moved iPhone production worth a total of $7 billion from China to India. The same official said Apple plans to generate $40 billion in revenue over the next five years as the company accelerates plans to reduce its dependence on China.

The need for Apple to reduce its reliance on China as a manufacturing hub has been evident for years, but the pandemic’s impact on the world’s largest iPhone assembly plant has really brought the issue to the fore. The disruption caused by COVID-19 is estimated to cost the company a billion dollars a week.

India is seen as Apple’s main hope when it comes to moving production out of China. A report published last year suggested that a quarter of all iPhones could be manufactured in India by 2025; a later report said that figure could rise to half of all iPhones by 2027.

Earlier this year, we learned that major iPhone maker Foxconn had started construction of two new iPhone factories in India, and new government incentives mean iPad production will soon start there too.

iPhone production costs $7 billion in India

This was reported by BQ Prime (before Bloomberg Five) .

iPhone maker Apple plans to increase its production in India more than fivefold to around $40 billion or around Rs 3.32 lakh crore in the next four to five years, according to government sources. According to the official, who asked not to be named, the company exceeded $7 billion in revenue last fiscal year.

In the same fiscal year, Apple’s total iPhone production was $191 billion; This ensured that India had a very small share in total production at that time. However, there have been persistent reports that the Cupertino-based company is planning to significantly increase iPhone production in India as tensions with China remain high.

These latest figures are still well below previous estimates.

Big change this year

Apple, which started production of the iPhone 14 last year a few weeks after its launch in India, managed to start production of the iPhone 15 at the same time this year.

Apple will sell new iPhone models made in India on launch day for the first time (via Bloomberg). This means the iPhone 15 you bought on September 22 may have been manufactured in India, signaling that Apple’s global supply chain infrastructure is taking significant steps to expand beyond China.