According to a report by the Financial Times, Apple faces a major challenge in reducing its dependence on China. One supplier in India in particular produces iPhone cases with a 50% rejection rate compared to the company’s zero-defect goal. The report suggests that Indian suppliers lack the same level of preparation as Chinese suppliers. A former Apple engineer also said that the Indian supply chain suffers from a lack of urgency, which sometimes leads to longer delivery times.

Apple’s task of copying its Chinese supply chain in India is a daunting task because low throughput has become a major problem for the company. Only half of the components produced in an iPhone case factory run by the Indian company Tata are of acceptable quality for shipping to Apple’s iPhone assembly partner Foxconn.

This will likely be a long process as Indian companies are expected to adopt and learn the standards required by Apple suppliers. Tech entrepreneur and academic Vivek Wadhwa suggested it could take up to three years for Indian suppliers to build up the production volumes needed to compete with China.

Apple may also need to adapt to India’s bureaucratic government, as Wadhwa recommends that its engineers learn the art of “doing anything” or breaking through barriers. However, prospects for moving a significant portion of iPhone production to India remain good over the medium term, with recent forecasts suggesting that 25% of global production will occur in India by 2025 and 50% by 2028. With the launch of the iPhone 15 later this year, the company will need to ramp up production significantly over the next few months.

It’s important to note that Apple’s new sourcing operations in other countries cannot compete with operations perfected for decades in China. As a result, new Apple suppliers in other countries may experience similar problems in the future. The report highlights the extent of the challenge Apple faces to reduce its reliance on China and the work it must do to replicate its Chinese supply chain in other countries.