By Kiran Rathee
Copyright indiatimes
ReutersView of an Apple logo at an Apple store
Apple has sharply expanded its supply chain in India to nearly 45 companies, including local component makers and those who make up the subassembly ecosystem, according to officials familiar with the matter. These component suppliers have so far created about 350,000 jobs, including 120,000 direct jobs, they said.To be sure, the jobs created by the component suppliers are in addition to the hundreds of thousands of jobs generated by the five iPhone factories of Apple vendors located in the country, the world’s second largest smartphone market.”Apple-now in its fifth year of operations-has strongly pivoted to bringing multiple Indian equipment manufacturers into its supply chain. Along with some big Indian firms, there are over 20 Indian MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) who have now joined the Apple supply chain,” said one of the officials, who did not wish to be identified.The India-based companies that Apple has brought into its domestic ecosystem include Tata Electronics, Aequs, Jabil, Microplastics, ATL, Salcomp, Foxlink, Motherson, Bharat Forge, Wipro PARI and Hindalco, according to the official. Firms such as Avary, SFO Technologies, Titan Engineering & Automation Ltd and VVDN have also joined the supply chain of the iPhone maker and many of these suppliers are set to apply for the upcoming production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for component manufacturing, said an industry executive.While iPhone production is currently spread across five factories in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, the component and subassembly ecosystem spans many more states including Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Haryana, officials said.Live EventsA query sent to Apple regarding the component supply chain remained unanswered till press time.”One in five iPhones are now made in India due to the expanding ecosystem of Apple,” said a second official.The government has been focused on increasing domestic value addition (DVA) from India, despite various limitations. Experts believe that unlike readymade garments, the electronics sector faces DVA constraints as the supply chains are spread across many countries.As per the Ministry of Electronics and IT, the smartphone segment has reached a DVA of 19% this year. By comparison China, which nurtures a $1.2 trillion electronics industry built over 30 years as compared to India’s $140 billion, has reached a DVA of 40-45% over the past five years.India’s push for building the local ecosystem came after Apple decided to build its flagship iPhones in India after the 2020 smartphone PLI scheme.As per experts, Apple initially started strengthening the local supply chain by bringing in Chinese companies such as Sunwoda, Shenzhen Yuto and CCL Design, and had received security clearance for 14 of its Chinese suppliers to invest in India. But after the 2020 clashes between Indian and Chinese soldiers in Ladakh’s Galwan Valley, the Cupertino-based tech firm swiftly changed tack and started to build the ecosystem primarily using non-Chinese companies, a large majority of which were joint ventures, to ensure technology transfer and skill development.”By any standards, over three dozen Indian companies entering Apple’s ecosystem-in the face of opposition by the Chinese government to allow technology transfer, on the one hand, and press note 3 of 2020, on the other-is quite remarkable,” said another government official.Press note 3 of 2020 introduced the requirement of prior government approval in case of any foreign direct investment from entities of countries that share land-borders with India.Apple’s Indian ecosystem produced iPhones worth $45 billion in the four-year period between 2021-22 and 2024-25, of which 76% worth $34 billion were exported, as per government data. Led by the surge in iPhone production, smartphone exports became India’s number one export at the end of 2024-25, rising from 167th rank in 2014-15.Add as a Reliable and Trusted News Source Add Now!
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