Key Points

This marks a significant milestone for the facility, which is Foxconn’s second-largest iPhone manufacturing unit outside China and has been set up at an investment of around $2.8 billion (about Rs 25,000 crore).

The Bengaluru unit, located in Devanahalli, is now operational alongside Foxconn’s Chennai plant, where iPhone 17 production is also underway, as per sources close to the development.

This follows the local production of iPhone 16 series last year around the same time-frame, ahead of its global and India launch.

However, Apple or Foxconn were yet to officially comment on the development.

The new facility had faced a brief setback earlier this year after several Chinese engineers left abruptly, but Foxconn has since managed to bring in experts from Taiwan and other locations to bridge the gap.

Apple is betting big on India as a manufacturing hub. The company is expected to scale up iPhone production to 60 million units this year, compared to 35–40 million units in 2024–25.

In the year ended March 31, 2025, Apple assembled 60 per cent more iPhones in India, worth an estimated $22 billion.

Apple CEO Tim Cook recently underlined India’s growing importance in the company’s global supply chain.

After announcing financial results on July 31, he revealed that a majority of iPhones sold in the US in June 2025 were made in India.

During the second-quarter earnings call, Cook also confirmed that all iPhones sold in the US during the June quarter were shipped from India.

An analysis by S&P Global shows that iPhone sales in the US touched 75.9 million units in 2024. With March 2025 exports from India at 3.1 million units, Apple will need to double shipments through expanded capacity or divert more devices meant for the domestic market to meet this demand.

Meanwhile, Apple’s presence in India’s smartphone market continues to grow. Supplies rose 21.5 per cent annually to 5.9 million units in the first half of 2025, with the iPhone 16 emerging as the most shipped model.

In the June quarter alone, Apple’s shipments in India rose nearly 20 per cent year-on-year (YoY), giving it a 7.5 per cent market share.

The broader Indian smartphone market, however, remained dominated by Chinese brands, with Vivo leading at 19 per cent share during the same quarter, according to IDC.

The launch of the Bengaluru factory is seen as a major step in Apple’s strategy to diversify its production base away from China and strengthen India’s role as a global manufacturing hub.

- IANS