Apple starts manufacturing iPhone 14 in Chennai

Apple began manufacturing the iPhone 14 in India at the Foxconn plant near Chennai. Living up to all the rumours, the Cupertino-based tech giant began assembling this year's iPhone model much earlier than last year. Reports suggest that this is because Apple wants to move 25 per cent of its entire iPhone production line to India by 2025. By starting manufacturing the iPhone 14 earlier in India, Apple has started its journey to achieve the goal.

The locally manufactured iPhone 14 models will reportedly be shipped from Foxconn's Sriperumbudur facility, located on the outskirts of Chennai. According to PTI, Apple is pleased to start manufacturing the latest iPhone model in India. "We are excited to manufacture the iPhone 14 in India," the company said in an official statement. "The new iPhone 14 lineup introduces innovative new technologies and significant security capabilities," the company told the publication.

In India, Apple already makes several iPhone models, including the iPhone 13, iPhone 12, and iPhone SE. The company works with three partners to assemble iPhone models in the country Wistron, Foxconn and Pegatron. The local manufacturing of the iPhone 14 directly responds to the Indian government's Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme.

Launched earlier this month, the iPhone 14 starts for Rs 79,900 in India. Now that the iPhone 14 will be made locally in India, the question is: will the model's price drop in India? The answer is: maybe not. Or, maybe, yes. By making the iPhone 14 in India, Apple will be able to save 20 per cent on import taxes, which may affect the model's price later on, but there may not be any immediate price changes.

Rarely does Apple cut global prices for a local market. To recall, Apple did not officially lower the prices of the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13, even when these models were locally assembled. However, the company partners with some banks to offer discounts on third-party platforms like Amazon and Flipkart. Now, this may also be the case with the iPhone 14. But, nothing has been confirmed so far. The iPhone will be assembled in India, and there is hardly any local sourcing of components. As a result, the cost of production does not really go down, even in the case of local manufacturing.