Apple's supply chain in India has considerably grown very quickly, creating a workforce of 350,000 people for manufacturing the iPhone in just five years.
The iPhone supply chain in China is well known for being massive in scale, with hundreds and thousands of people joining the ranks each year. While that took decades to develop, Apple has managed to get a sizable supply chain going in India in a much shorter period.
Now in its fifth year of production in India, Apple has managed to grow the local supply chain to a high level. According to government officials speaking to Economic Times, this has resulted in connections with almost 45 companies based in the country.
The connections with component suppliers have been a great move for local employment figures. Approximately 350,000 jobs have been created through connections to suppliers in India, with the officials claiming that about 120,000 of those jobs are for direct employment.
Apple's impact is actually a lot wider than that in India, they continued. Those figures exclude the many thousands of jobs at the five iPhone factories in operation in the territory.
A varied supply chain
The list of companies involved in the Apple supply chain in India covers both big and small enterprises. According to an official, there are 20 Indian MSMEs (micro, small, and medium enterprises) in the supply chain.
They accompany many big hitters, including the behemoth Tata Electronics, Avary, and Titan Engineering and Automation. In some cases, they will also be applying to a modified Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, which will expand the program to component manufacturers.
The original PLI scheme from 2020 helped Apple push forward into manufacturing in India, offering incentives for scaling production in the region. Five years later, and an official insists that approximately one in five iPhones produced in the world are made in India.
While Apple did bring in some Chinese companies to help build the Indian supply chain, it did have some troubles. Clashes between Indian and Chinese soldiers in 2020 prompted a shift to using more non-Chinese companies.
This is despite efforts by China to try and hold on to its position as Apple's chief production base.
A redistribution of production
Apple's shift into India was part of an effort to safeguard its production from global events. In 2020, this was demonstrated by the effects of COVID-19 on factories in China, as well as rules implemented to fight the pandemic.
Financial threats were also a problem, with geopolitical issues such as the repeated US-China trade war and the current US import tariff situation introducing uncertainty to the ecosystem.
India was a form of insurance policy. If production in China was affected, or the shipment of Chinese-produced iPhones to a market was harmed in some way, the India operation could step in and bypass any issues.
