After iPhone, Apple may look to assemble the iPad in India

It has been many years since Apple has been assembling the iPhone in India. However, it hasn’t looked at India for other products in its lineup. Now, the Cupertino-based tech giant might be considering India as a destination to assemble the iPad. A report by CNBC reveals that Apple has held discussions with the government of India about exploring the possibility of assembling iPad in India. The report states that at this moment Apple has no concrete plans of doing so but may look at India as an alternative to other countries for the iPad assembly.
As per the report, sources have suggested that it will not be an easy task to move the assembly of iPad to India. The iPad is a rather complex device to assemble and there is concern over the “lack of highly skilled talent and individuals with expertise” to do so. This could be a roadblock and delay Apple’s plans of assembling the iPad in India.

From iPhone to iPad: Move from China to India?

A recent report by The Wall Street Journal revealed that Apple is looking at India for iPhone assembly in a big way. Apple has a production presence in India with Foxconn and Wistron assembling iPhones in the country. According to the report, Apple is looking to expand its production capabilities in mainly two countries — India and Vietnam. In Vietnam, Apple has two partners — Luxshare and Inventec — which are the two main assembly partners for the AirPods and HomePods line of products.
Covid-19 has created a lot of upheaval in China and Apple has had to bear some of its impact as well. The report says that Apple has already told its manufacturing partners to make an attempt to do more work outside of China.
Last month, noted Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo suggested that India could see 40-45% of iPhone production. Currently, the figure is much less — say around 5% — but reports about Tata Group typing with Wistron have been gaining momentum. At the moment, almost 80% of the iPhones that are assembled in India are for the domestic market. Kuo suggests that Tata’s partnership with existing Apple partners “can accelerate the increase in the proportion of non-China iPhone production.”