Apple plans to start manufacturing iPhone 14 in India as it seeks alternatives to China - report

The US tech giant has been working with suppliers to ramp up production in India and shorten the lag in manufacturing new iPhones from the typical six to nine months for previous launches, a Bloomberg report said

Apple is in the final stages of setting up for its iPhone 14 release in mid-September 2022

Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) plans to start manufacturing iPhone 14 in India as it seeks alternatives to China after the country's recent political clashes with the US over Taiwan and as fresh coronavirus lockdowns have disrupted production, Bloomberg News has reported.

The US tech giant has been working with suppliers to ramp up production in India and shorten the lag in manufacturing new iPhones from the typical six to nine months for previous launches, the Bloomberg report said, citing people familiar with the matter.

Apple's Taiwan-based supplier Foxconn has studied the process of shipping items from China and assembling the iPhone 14 at its plant outside of southern Indian city of Chennai, the report added, with production of the first iPhone 14s from India likely to be completed in late-October or November 2022.

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Apple has been shifting some areas of iPhone production from China to other markets including India, the world's second-biggest smartphone market, and is also planning to assemble iPad tablets there.

Last week, Japan's Nikkei newswire reported that Apple's suppliers are in talks to produce Apple Watch and MacBook in Vietnam for the first time.

Apple is in the final stages of setting up for its iPhone 14 release in mid-September 2022.

In a recent note to clients raising their target price for Apple stock, analysts at brokerage Wedbush said: "We believe the initial order for 90 million iPhone 14 units out of the gates has stayed firm and will be roughly flat with iPhone 13 despite the macro storm clouds.

"This speaks to the underlying demand story that Apple anticipates for this next iPhone release with our estimates that 240 million of 1 billion iPhone users worldwide have not upgraded their phones in over 3.5 years."

Contact the author at jon.hopkins@proactiveinvestors.com