Apple is set to establish two large manufacturing plants near Bengaluru and Chennai, together expected to employ around 100,000 people, as India ramps up domestic component production to support iPhone assembly, said Chief Economic Adviser V. Anantha Nageswaran.
During a fireside chat with former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan and Hoover Institution senior fellow Harold W. McGraw III, Nageswaran noted that Apple’s expansion aligns with its global strategy to diversify production away from China under India’s PLI scheme.
He added that value addition in India’s phone manufacturing sector has risen significantly — from low single digits in the initial years to strong double digits — with an increasing share of components now produced locally.
Apple has been consistently growing its manufacturing footprint in India, shifting a substantial portion of its U.S.-bound iPhone production out of China to mitigate tariff impacts. The current expansion includes Tata Group’s new facility in Hosur, Tamil Nadu, and Foxconn’s site near the Bengaluru airport, both recently operational. Tata’s plants could account for nearly half of India’s iPhone output within the next two years, reflecting the group’s rising importance as an Apple partner.
India’s iPhone exports jumped 53% year-on-year in the first half of 2025, reaching 23.9 million units compared to 15.6 million last year. The U.S. remained the primary destination, taking 78% of shipments — up sharply from 53% a year earlier — while markets like the Netherlands, UAE, Czech Republic, UK, and Japan each dropped to a 2–4% share.
This rapid scale-up began when severe COVID-19 lockdowns in China disrupted production at Apple’s biggest facility, prompting the company to reduce its reliance on a single market. Most of these exported iPhones are assembled at Foxconn’s southern India plant, with Tata’s electronics division also emerging as a major contributor.
Apple continues to rapidly expand its presence in India through retail and production capacity.
