Apple faces difficulties in replicating “Made in China” in India

The British “Financial Times” reported on the 14th that the US technology giant Apple ‘s efforts to shift its supply chain to India are encountering local difficulties. The “Financial Times” quoted four sources as saying that Apple recently sent product designers and engineers from California and China to the southern Indian factory to conduct training to help the factory start production. According to reports, Apple is trying to get rid of its reliance on China-centric supply chains, establish new businesses in India, and follow the successful route it adopted in China 20 years ago to advance its diversification strategy.

However, the “Financial Times” stated that practice in recent months has proved that it is difficult for Apple to achieve its expected goals in India. At present, Indian suppliers are not only far from being able to compare with China in terms of scale, but also their production quality cannot keep up. The report quoted sources as saying that the Indian industrial giant Tata Group has an Apple casing factory in Hosur, and its good product rate is only 50%. In other words, only half of the casings produced by the factory can be sent to Foxconn for further assembly . Apple’s goal is to achieve zero defects. Two people involved in Apple’s overseas operations said the Tata plant had plans to improve the quality of production, but it was a long way off.

Apple started to promote the production of low-end iPhones in India in 2017. In September last year, Apple began to accelerate the production of high-end iPhones in India. According to the analysis, Apple intends to end its high dependence on China’s supply chain, and also hopes to replicate its success in China’s supply chain construction in India over the past 20 years. In January this year, Bloomberg broke the news that 14 Chinese suppliers of Apple had obtained preliminary licenses to operate in India. The report mentioned at the time that India still lacks enough local electronic component manufacturers that meet Apple’s quality control requirements.

Recently, India has continued to take over Apple’s supply chain business. Last month, it was reported in the industry that Tata Group plans to spend more than 600 million US dollars to acquire Wistron’s iPhone assembly plant in southern India. The two sides have been negotiating for several months before, and the media expects that the relevant transaction will be completed before March this year. This will make Tata the first iPhone production plant in India. Previously, Indian companies only participated in the iPhone supply chain and did not produce finished products.