iPhone, iPad production could ramp up in India

Apple manufacturing partner, Pegatron has spent US$14.2 million to buy the rights to use a plot of land for building a factory in Channai, India, according to DigiTimes.

Pegatron will purportedly set up a manufacturing base on the factory site mainly for production of iPhones. with production to begin the earliest in the second half of 2021. DigiTimes says Pegatron plans to employ about 14,000 workers there.

Speaking of India, Apple hopes to start iPad production in India by participating in a new government plan to increase India’s exports of computer parts and products, according to Reuters.

The performance-linked incentive (PLI) scheme, which offers cash-back to manufacturers for exports, will have a budget of up to 70 billion rupees (about $964.5 million) over five years and is expected to be launched by the end of February. Reuters says that Apple and other tech companies are lobbying for a bigger budgetary outlay of 200 billion rupees before that plan is finalized, “as India doesn’t yet have the scale or the supply chain for making IT products and competes with duty-free imports of tech products, two of the sources said.”