NEW DELHI: After shifting iPhone production worth billions of dollars to India, Apple is set to step up the game in the country, having finalised plans to start producing AirPods, with a massive focus on exports.
The company will start making the casing for the product at the Pune factory of American contract manufacturer Jabil, and thereafter the AirPods will be manufactured at a new unit of Foxconn in Telangana, sources told TOI.
“It will be a mega operation, on the lines of the work done for iPhones, and will be focused mainly on global exports, considering that the market for AirPods is much bigger abroad than in India,” the sources said.
A questionnaire sent to Apple as well as Foxconn was not answered.
The AirPods production comes to India even in the absence of a production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for hearables, something which is there for those making smartphones.
Apple, which began manufacturing iPhones in India in 2021, is estimated to have exported around $14 billion of its smartphone production in FY24. This constituted 14% of the iPhone’s global production.
The company is ramping up the iPhone production rapidly and has also started manufacturing the coveted Pro series of models from this year through its list of contract manufacturers — Taiwanese Foxconn and Pegatron, and the local Tata group (who had taken over the operations of Wistron).
The AirPods will be manufactured from next year, and will also be sold in India, the sources said, adding that Apple plans to ramp up the production “to a few billion dollars very rapidly.”
“The focus on exports means that Apple will create a second large manufacturing base outside China, which currently is one of the key production centres for most of its products. The plan was the same when the iPhone manufacturing had started,” one of the sources said.
The govt is enthused about the plans of the company to deepen its manufacturing in the country, especially as its products are in the premium category and add a lot of weight to the country’s export basket when shipped abroad.
For Apple, India is gradually developing as a trusted manufacturing base, especially as many of its key vendors set up base here with the production volumes getting bigger. While state governments have pitched in with incentives for bagging the factories being set for the company’s products, the central govt has also been playing the role of a facilitator by showing leniency towards the entry of many of its Chinese parts vendors (notwithstanding the otherwise stiff positioning around investments from the neighbouring country due to border and diplomatic tensions).
And as Apple prepares to add the AirPods to its India manufacturing, the company does not have any immediate plans to make the MacBooks in the country. This is despite the fact that the govt has been pushing laptop makers to Make in India, with an attractive production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme.
“The MacBooks will take time when it comes to local manufacturing in India. First, the volumes for Apple’s premium notebooks are still limited here, and so the business case is also restricted. Also, with more than sufficient global production levels, creating new factories in India can lead to oversupply. Thus, MacBook production will take time as of now,” one of the sources said.
