In a tweet, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal announced Apple’s manufacturing intent in India. “Significant boost to Make in India! Apple has started manufacturing iPhone 11 in India, bringing a top-of-the-line model for the first time in the country,” he posted. Currently, iPhone XR and iPhone 11 are being assembled by Foxconn at its Chennai plant, while iPhone 7 is assembled by Wistron in Bengaluru.

Taiwanese electronics contract manufacturing giant Foxconn, a leading assembler for Apple, has been allocated 30 acres out of Finnish Nokia’s 210-acre land parcel in the Nokia telecom cluster at Oragadam. Foxconn has also got 150-acres in the Sipcot Electronics Hardware SEZ facility at Sriperumbudur. Apple started production in February this year, in Chennai. “The trial production exercise started but due to COVID-19, operations came to a halt. However, production has now resumed,” said a source. When contacted, a top official of Foxconn did not comment.

Assembling the iPhones under the ‘Make in India’ initiative will help the company avoid the 22% tax on its imported phones, however, trade sources say there is no price reduction and the MRP on locally assembled iPhone 11s.

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