Apple and Amazon Keep India’s Tech Manufacturing Running Full Steam Ahead

Tech giants continue setting up production in India

Last September, I wrote an in-depth piece on whether Apple will ever choose India over China. This was, and still remains, a challenging question because the US tech giant carries out nearly 90 percent of its manufacturing in China.

However, a number of reasons contributed to Apple’s interest in India: Trump’s trade war and the Covid-19 pandemic, both of which affected Apple’s supply chain in China, attractive financial incentives provided by the Indian government, and the tremendous potential that India’s 1.3 billion strong population holds for Apple’s future.

Apple began expanding its manufacturing in India in late 2019 when Foxconn, Apple’s largest contract manufacturer, started producing the iPhone XR in a plant outside the southern Indian city of Chennai. Apple’s efforts picked up pace in July 2020 during the peak of the pandemic. Foxconn pledged $1 billion to expand operations and Pegatron, Apple’s second-largest contract manufacturer, registered a subsidiary in India. A few months later, Wistron, another major Apple contractor, began assembling Apple’s latest iPhone SE and started the trial production for the iPhone 12 in its newly built factory near Bangalore. Then in…