Apple will make its iPhone 14 in India, the company said on Monday. The announcement comes at a time when manufacturers are moving production from China.
Apple described the new phones in a statement, saying they have “new technologies and important safety capabilities.” The statement added, “We’re excited to be manufacturing iPhone 14 in India.”
Apple showed its latest iPhone for the first time earlier this month. The new model will have a better camera, faster processors and longer lasting batteries. The price is expected to remain the same as last year’s phones.
India is the world’s second-largest smartphone market after China. But Apple iPhone sales have not taken a large share of the market there.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is pushing for local manufacturing, a main goal for his government since he took office in 2014.
Apple has bet big on India, where it first began manufacturing its iPhone SE in 2017. Apple has continued to put together a number of iPhones there. Apple opened its online store for India two years ago. Local media say COVID-19 delayed plans for a large physical store in India.
The latest model will be shipped out by Foxconn, a major iPhone assembler whose buildings are on the outside of Chennai, a city in southern India.
By 2025, Apple expects India will produce 25 percent of iPhones, reports the Press Trust of India.
Sanyam Chaurasia of Canalys, a technology market research company, said, “Apple has been trying to diversify its supply chain for a while, but these efforts have grown in the last two years over trade sanctions between the U.S. and China.”
Last year, Apple manufactured around 7 million iPhones in India.
Chaurasia said the plan to make more iPhones in India may also lead Apple to drop its prices for the Indian market, making it more competitive. “You can adopt a more aggressive pricing strategy if you manufacture locally,” he said.
Most of Apple’s smartphones and tablets are put together by other companies with factories in China. But Apple started asking them in 2020 to look at the possibility of moving some production to Southeast Asia or other places after repeated shutdowns to fight COVID-19 slowed its movement of products.
Apple has not released details, but news reports say the company planned to set up assembly of tablet computers and wireless earphones in Vietnam.
Other companies are keeping or growing manufacturing in China to serve the local market. They are, however, moving export-related work to other countries due to rising wages and other costs as well as the difficulty for foreign business leaders to visit China due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.
I’m John Russell.
Krutika Pathi reported on this story for the Associated Press. John Russell adapted it for VOA Learning English.
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Words in This Story
bet – v. to make decisions that are based on the belief that something will happen or is true; to risk losing something (such as money) if your guess about what will happen is wrong
model – n. a particular type or version of a product (such as a car or computer)
assemble – v. to connect or put together the parts of (something, such as a toy or machine)
strategy – n. a careful plan or method for achieving a particular goal usually over a long period of time
diversify – v. to change (something) so that it has more different kinds of people or things
adopt – v. to begin to use or have (a different manner, method, etc.)
tablet – n. a flat, rectangular computing device that is used for connecting to the Internet, watching videos, reading books, etc.