Apple plans to transfer 6 production lines to India, and these 22 shielding material manufacturers promise to follow suit

According to relevant media reports, Apple's manufacturers are currently targeting emerging markets such as India with the main goal of reducing costs.

The Indian side is quite sensitive to the news that their country is favored, and soon The Times of India published a report stating that the supplier of American tech giant Apple is planning to transfer six production lines to India. At the same time, the Minister of Science and Technology of India has also made a high-profile statement that by 2025, India is expected to produce smartphones and related components worth 11.5 trillion rupees (approximately 1.07 trillion yuan). Currently, more than 40 overseas companies are planning to increase their presence in the Indian smartphone production market.

At the same time, there have been reports from the Indian side that 22 world-renowned mobile phone production and assembly companies, including Foxconn, Wistron, and Pegatron, have made commitments to invest a total of 110 billion rupees (equivalent to 10.24 billion yuan) to open factories in India. It seems that the Indian economy has ushered in hope.

However, everything is not that simple. There is still a significant gap between India's local infrastructure and labor quality compared to other major producing countries. These production enterprises are stepping up the Indian market, which is actually a trial state. They dare not confidently hand over their most important products or components directly to India. The Indian business sector has been boasting that the country has the world's second-largest smartphone consumer market, but its performance this year has not been outstanding.

According to the country's data, the shipment of smartphones in India in the second quarter of 2020 was 17.3 million units, compared to 33 million units in the same period last year. Therefore, the shipment of smartphones in India in the second quarter sharply decreased by 48% year-on-year, which is the worst level since 2010.

Interestingly, although Apple and Samsung manufacturers have started investing in building factories in India, the most attractive smartphone brands for Indians are from China. Data shows that as of the second quarter of this year, Apple only holds 1% of the Indian smartphone market share, Samsung holds 16.8%, while Chinese companies represented by Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo hold about 80% of the market share. India has over 1 billion wireless users, but there are still 350 million users using landline phones, which is a huge market.

Industry insiders analyze that Foxconn and other manufacturers are expanding their factories in India to avoid the risk of a trade war and to expand their market share in India by producing lower priced products. It is worth mentioning that the New Delhi authorities have also encouraged overseas mobile phone manufacturers to set up factories in India, and even made preferential policies, but there are no Chinese Mainland brands on the list.