If you’ve been saving money, your next iPhone purchase might not be as expensive as you thought. The Cupertino based company has officially decided to setup a manufacturing unit in India. Confirming the news, the Karnataka government has issued a release, welcoming Apple’s proposal “to commence initial manufacturing operations” in the south Indian state.
This will make India only the third country globally, where iPhones will be assembled. Wistron, Apple’s Taiwan based original equipment manufacturer will assemble the devices at a unit which will be setup in Peenya, an industrial hub in Bangalore. Although no official timeline has been provided yet, production is expected to begin sometime in the month of June 2017. The Government is in talks with Apple for collaborations in other areas too, where it is said to be pushing for the manufacture of some phone components.
This move only cements the fact that how important the Indian market is for Apple, considering that the iPhone’s growth in China has witnessed a decline and sales went down by 21% in 2016. The premium phone held the crown for being the top selling smartphone in the Chinese market since 2012, losing that spot to the Oppo R9 last year. Apple India clocked a strong sales figure of Rs. 9,997 crores in the year 2016, a hike of 56% from Rs. 6,472 crores in the previous year. Apple sold 2.5 million iPhones in India from October 2015 to September 2016, which is a strong reason for the Cupertino based manufacturer to now expand its presence in the country.
