Apple Inc might make one out of four iPhones in India by 2025, JPMorgan & Chase Co analysts said yesterday, as the tech giant moves some production away from China, amid mounting geopolitical tensions and strict COVID-19 lockdowns in the country.
JPMorgan expects Apple to move about 5 percent of iPhone 14 production from late this year to India, which is the second-biggest smartphone market in the world after China.
It is also estimating that about 25 percent of all Apple products, including Mac, iPad, Apple Watch and AirPods, would be manufactured outside China by 2025 from 5 percent currently.
Photo: Reuters
The US company has bet big on India since it began iPhone assembly in the country in 2017 via Wistron Corp (緯創), and later with Pegatron Corp (和碩) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) internationally, in line with the Indian government’s push for local manufacturing.
The COVID-19 pandemic hampered supply chain relocation plans for businesses, but with restrictions easing, more companies, including Apple, are reaccelerating these efforts this year.
“Taiwanese vendors such as Hon Hai and Pegatron play a key role in the relocation to India. In the medium to long term, we also expect Apple to qualify local India manufacturing suppliers,” said JPMorgan analysts led by Gokul Hariharan, who is rated 4 out of 5 for estimates accuracy.
A Bloomberg report earlier this month said that Indian conglomerate Tata Group was in talks with Wistron to establish a joint venture to assemble iPhones in the country amid Apple’s plans to cut production lag with China.
In other news, the Indian government yesterday raised fiscal support for new semiconductor facilities to cover 50 percent of project costs and said it would remove a ceiling for maximum permitted investment for display manufacturing as it moves to boost local production.
The announcement comes as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government seeks to attract more big-ticket investments under a US$10 billion incentive plan for chip and display production, aiming to make India a key player in the global supply chain.
“On the basis of discussion with potential investors, it is expected that work on setting up the first semiconductor facility will commence soon,” a government statement said.
The government had previously agreed to cover between 30 and 50 percent of the cost of setting up new display and chip plants.
The government yesterday said it would also cover 50 percent of the capital expenditure required to set up semiconductor packaging facilities.
Last week, oil-to-metals conglomerate Vedanta Ltd and Hon Hai signed a pact with India’s Gujarat to invest US$19.5 billion in the western state to set up semiconductor and display production plants.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
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Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day