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Mass Production of iPhones To Start In India

Posted by BeauHD on from the made-in-India dept.

Apple is poised to begin mass production of iPhones in India this year, according to Foxconn Technology Group Chairman Terry Gou. This marks a big shift for the largest assembler of Apple's handsets that has long concentrated production in China. Bloomberg reports: Gou said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has invited him to India as his Taiwanese company plans its expansion in the country. Apple has had older phones produced at a plant in Bangalore for several years, but now will expand manufacturing to more recent models. Bloomberg News reported this month that Foxconn is ready to start trial production of the latest iPhones in the country before it starts full-scale assembly at its factory outside the southern city of Chennai.

India has become the fastest-growing smartphone market in the world, while China stagnates and Apple loses share to local competitors such as Huawei Technologies Co. and Xiaomi Corp. Apple has been a minor player in India, in part because of its high prices, but local manufacturing would help the Cupertino, California-based company avoid import duties of 20 percent. It's not yet clear how Apple's steps into India will affect its China operations. China has been the company's most important manufacturing base for years, home to Foxconn's biggest facilities and hundreds of other partners.

40 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. And the Gates of Hell Have Opened by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    God save their souls!

  2. And so china enters the first world.... by sg_oneill · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A chinese friend recently complained to me that while life in china has gotten good, and wages not that far from what he was making when he was working in spain, so has the rent, cost of living etc and now manufacturers are picking up and moving to factories in India, the Philipines and Africa.

    Welcome to the first world China. Might I suggest leaning on your government to get some sort of welfare thing going, now that you've made it, all the jobs are going bye bye.

    --
    Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
    1. Re:And so china enters the first world.... by myth24601 · · Score: 1

      Welcome to the first world China. Might I suggest leaning on your government to get some sort of welfare thing going, now that you've made it, all the jobs are going bye bye.

      China is a first world country with a third world country inside it.

      --
      No matter where you go, there you are.
    2. Re:And so china enters the first world.... by swillden · · Score: 1

      A chinese friend recently complained to me that while life in china has gotten good, and wages not that far from what he was making when he was working in spain, so has the rent, cost of living etc and now manufacturers are picking up and moving to factories in India, the Philipines and Africa.

      Yep, this is how the world is lifted by global trade. Production moves to the place where labor is cheapest, meaning where living standards are the lowest. As incomes and living standards are lifted by this new (to the area) industry, other low-cost regions begin to get more attractive and some of the production starts to move there. The areas the production moves from are harmed by this to some degree, but the harm to them is far less than the benefit to those who are lifted up, because the game is not zero-sum. The losers tend at worst to stagnate, while the winners see massive increases in their wealth, and the overall global GDP just goes up and up.

      Globalization has minor, localized downsides, but enormous, humanity-wide upsides. It's a very good thing, on balance.

      Also, trading partners tend not to go to war with one another, so there's that benefit as well.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  3. Old News by SuperKendall · · Score: 5, Insightful

    2/3 of China is below the poverty line

    You can be forgiven for thinking that, because it was not that long ago what you say was true and you don't get a lot of news about China in the mainstream press.

    But these days the poverty rate has been driven to 3.1 percent, because China has been working really hard to live the very poorest out of poverty.

    Now China is of course known to cook some books, but even with that factored in they are far from having 2/3 of China below the poverty line these days.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re: Old News by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      With an Iron fist. Mass relocations. Villages and towns erradicated. If you disagree zip off to communist work camps you go. You do as the communists say not as you want like true liberty.

    2. Re:Old News by larryjoe · · Score: 3, Informative

      2/3 of China is below the poverty line

      You can be forgiven for thinking that, because it was not that long ago what you say was true and you don't get a lot of news about China in the mainstream press.

      But these days the poverty rate has been driven to 3.1 percent, because China has been working really hard to live the very poorest out of poverty.

      Now China is of course known to cook some books, but even with that factored in they are far from having 2/3 of China below the poverty line these days.

      It's not a matter of cooking books but cooking definitions. The poverty level often used for such breathtaking advancements in Chinese poverty eradication is an income of less than $2/day. Yes, earning around $500-600 per year is considered above the poverty level. This particular definition allows the China government to aim "to eliminate absolute poverty by 2020".

    3. Re:Old News by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Also remember that Communist regimes *lie*, wholesale, about their economies. Robert Heinlein wrote, decades ago, about the fraudulent population and economic claims of the USSR after he and his wife visited and found no sign of the booming shipyards, rails, or family growth they claimed after WWII. We see the same sort of nonsense now from both Russia and China, as borne out by observable date *not* filtered through their press: light from population and industry caputed by night-time satellite photos.

      https://www.investors.com/poli...

    4. Re:Old News by luis_a_espinal · · Score: 2

      2/3 of China is below the poverty line

      You can be forgiven for thinking that, because it was not that long ago what you say was true and you don't get a lot of news about China in the mainstream press.

      But these days the poverty rate has been driven to 3.1 percent, because China has been working really hard to live the very poorest out of poverty.

      Now China is of course known to cook some books, but even with that factored in they are far from having 2/3 of China below the poverty line these days.

      It's not a matter of cooking books but cooking definitions. The poverty level often used for such breathtaking advancements in Chinese poverty eradication is an income of less than $2/day. Yes, earning around $500-600 per year is considered above the poverty level. This particular definition allows the China government to aim "to eliminate absolute poverty by 2020".

      Are you considering poverty strictly on daily gross income without taking into account regional costs of living?

      Word of advice: don't.

      Bro, you forgot to factor in regional costs of living. In some areas $2/day is enough to live well out of poverty.

      It's the same in every country, even here in the US. A single person making $30K/year would be one cunt-hair close to living in the gutter in, say, San Francisco or Miami.

      That same gross income would make the same person live well above the poverty line in Sebring, FL.

    5. Re:Old News by larryjoe · · Score: 1

      The poverty level depends on what you need to live a reasonable life in a given country, so of course it will be lower in China. $2/day is not enough in big cities, but in rural areas it is.

      Back in 1981 some 88% of the population was living on less than the modern equivalent of $2/day (adjusted for inflation), so no matter how you frame it it's clear that the majority of people have seen a considerable increase in their income and quality of life.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      For the most part, Chinese government numbers are more trustworthy on a relative basis than an absolute basis. For example, estimates of economic growth are generally regarded outside of China as inflated, but they are nonetheless useful to indicate the movement of economic growth.

      So, I agree that there has been obvious and dramatic improvements in the percentage of Chinese living in poverty. This is true by many measures. However, the specific absolute numbers for poverty are not trustworthy. $2/day is not enough to live in Chinese cities, where half the population lives. In fact, googling for prices in China, it's clear that $2/day is orders of magnitude less than what is necessary for basic necessities. It's harder to find costs of living in the countryside, so it's hard to gauge the hypothesis that $2/day is sufficient for the countryside. But it's hard to believe that the prices from the city to the countryside drop by orders of magnitude. I've never seen any country where that's true.

    6. Re:Old News by larryjoe · · Score: 1

      Bro, you forgot to factor in regional costs of living. In some areas $2/day is enough to live well out of poverty.

      I agree that the different costs of living are an important consideration. Do you personally know that $2/day is enough to subsist in any part of China, or have you read such numbers anywhere? That's where my skepticism lies. That China has made breathtaking advances in lifting many of its people out of poverty is obvious. That $2/day is a useful threshold for setting the poverty level is nowhere near as obvious.

      It's the same in every country, even here in the US. A single person making $30K/year would be one cunt-hair close to living in the gutter in, say, San Francisco or Miami.

      That same gross income would make the same person live well above the poverty line in Sebring, FL.

      Yes, there are obviously differences in costs of living from region to region within any country. However, there are minimal costs of living in any area. In the US, the official poverty level for a single person in the contiguous 48 states is $12,140. I personally lived below the official poverty level growing up in a cheap area in the US. It's possible but not easy.

      The question for this thread is what a useful poverty level should be for China. I've visited Beijing as a tourist and found the city to be nowhere near cheap, i.e., there's no way anyone could come close to living in Beijing on $2/day. How much do the costs of living fall when living in the countryside? I have no personal experience, and I couldn't google any data on this. However, although we might have visions of dirt-poor Chinese peasants who can live on 10% or 1% of what people in the cities pay, what are the real numbers? Absent even anecdotal accounts, I'm skeptical about the $2/day poverty level for any one specific location in China, let alone as a national poverty level.

    7. Re:Old News by luis_a_espinal · · Score: 2

      I recommend watching Hans Rosling, its quite insightful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

      Dude, that's one of the best things I've ever seen. I typically don't give thanks in /., but shit dude, thanks for sharing that!

    8. Re:Old News by luis_a_espinal · · Score: 2

      Also remember that Communist regimes *lie*, wholesale, about their economies. Robert Heinlein wrote, decades ago, about the fraudulent population and economic claims of the USSR after he and his wife visited and found no sign of the booming shipyards, rails, or family growth they claimed after WWII. We see the same sort of nonsense now from both Russia and China, as borne out by observable date *not* filtered through their press: light from population and industry caputed by night-time satellite photos.

      https://www.investors.com/poli...

      Well, China's system does not qualify as a communist system (or even state) at all.

      And it's not only them. Just look at us under the 45, we are winning, bigly, trade wars, so easy to win, eat coal for breakfast and shit rolls of dollars and gold pellets.

    9. Re:Old News by luis_a_espinal · · Score: 1

      Bro, you forgot to factor in regional costs of living. In some areas $2/day is enough to live well out of poverty.

      I agree that the different costs of living are an important consideration. Do you personally know that $2/day is enough to subsist in any part of China, or have you read such numbers anywhere? That's where my skepticism lies. That China has made breathtaking advances in lifting many of its people out of poverty is obvious. That $2/day is a useful threshold for setting the poverty level is nowhere near as obvious.

      It's the same in every country, even here in the US. A single person making $30K/year would be one cunt-hair close to living in the gutter in, say, San Francisco or Miami.

      That same gross income would make the same person live well above the poverty line in Sebring, FL.

      Yes, there are obviously differences in costs of living from region to region within any country. However, there are minimal costs of living in any area. In the US, the official poverty level for a single person in the contiguous 48 states is $12,140. I personally lived below the official poverty level growing up in a cheap area in the US. It's possible but not easy.

      The question for this thread is what a useful poverty level should be for China. I've visited Beijing as a tourist and found the city to be nowhere near cheap, i.e., there's no way anyone could come close to living in Beijing on $2/day. How much do the costs of living fall when living in the countryside? I have no personal experience, and I couldn't google any data on this. However, although we might have visions of dirt-poor Chinese peasants who can live on 10% or 1% of what people in the cities pay, what are the real numbers? Absent even anecdotal accounts, I'm skeptical about the $2/day poverty level for any one specific location in China, let alone as a national poverty level.

      A $2/day is certainly not applicable in Beijing or any of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd tier metropolitan areas, but it does work in rural areas. I grew up in a poor country ,Nicaragua, the 2nd poorest country in the Western Hemisphere actually. You could actually put a roof over your head and eat 3 meals on $2/day if you live in the rural east/south east regions of the country. However, it's barely enough on the north, certainly insufficient in the capital or the urban centers on the Western coast of the country.

      Two dollars a day can be a good amount of moolah depending on where you live (this is particularly true if you have a home garden where you raise chickens or a mono-culture or two, which is typical in rural areas in China, Nicaragua and many other developing countries.)

      You are right, that we need to define what's enough to live above poverty in Rural China (or rather, the many Rural Chinas that exist.) But that to me is no evidence that a $2/day is not enough for some of those regions.

  4. Re:Why is this "news"? by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    AC the tax on and gov/mil access to a smartphone made in India is news.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  5. Re:China is definitely NOT a first world anything by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Trump IS INDEED an asshole, but that doesn't make China's decades of being an authoritarian shithole any less palpable. Go wave your Winnie the Pooh flag if you don't believe me, Chi-Coms will love your independent spirit.

    All the way to a hole in the ground.

  6. Re:China is definitely NOT a first world anything by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    You need to pull your finger out of your ass right now.
    I know American not being NUMBER ONE is scary, but resting on your laurels is exactly the best way to make that a self-fulfilling prophesy.

    China's middle/consumer class is now so large, that it can support vast domestic production. China doesn't have to accept waste re-processing from 3rd world countries anymore, and soon it won't have to make Walmart shit for rednecks anymore.

    You can stick your fingers in your ears, scream fox news talking points, and ramble about how America put a trashcan on the moon 70 year ago, or you can get with the program.
    America is a nation of fat junkies, and crumbling infrastructure.
    China is on an upward trajectory, and all their infrastructure is brand-fucking-new. It's good too because most of it is German. The Germans have about the smartest relationship with China of any country, not a pissing match like has-been Anglo-shit countries.

    Finally you need to understand how China is an authoritarian country. Not the fox news caricature of "le evil 20th century communists".
    We need to focus on how the west is similar rather than different in order to counter authoritarianism.

    You do WANT to counter authoritarianism don't you? Be honest. Many people are cucks in the Freudian sense, and secretly don't want to live in a free world. They want to be dominated by strong men, both personally and politically.

  7. Well... by msauve · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That will certainly incentivize their largest market - US consumers - to buy products from India instead of China.

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    1. Re:Well... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      It's a clever move. Serve a rapidly growing market with patriotic "Made In $YourCountry" products, and make your business more resilient to trade wars and tariffs at the same time.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    2. Re:Well... by luis_a_espinal · · Score: 1

      That will certainly incentivize their largest market - US consumers - to buy products from India instead of China.

      Nah, we are just going to start blaming Indians for losing factories jobs... and we'll find a way to do retroactively, for job losses related to NAFTA or something. Then we'll start a trade war with them, cuz, you know, we are both awesome and also victims looking for a culprit and shit like that. That's how we roll.

  8. Re:Why is this "news"? by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    Will India get the crypto keys from a US brand and full code review too?

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  9. I don't think it's that by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    India's government is strongly nationalist and has their own manufacturing base. They basically told Apple you're either making your phones here or you're not selling them here.

    The US and Europe can't do that because the mega corps want to pocket the extra $50-$100 bucks per phone needed to make them without borderline slave labor and a reckless disregard for environmental safety.

    --
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    1. Re:I don't think it's that by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

      India does this with everything - they demand local offsets (in many cases equivalent to 100% of foreign purchases) or local production as a means to have an external entity pay for increased education and skilled jobs improvements in India. Its also cost them significantly along the way - currently 17 years into a fighter aircraft purchase competition thats been cancelled something like 4 times now because western companies won't guarantee under contract the quality of local Indian manufacturers chosen by the Indian government as partners for offsetting.

  10. Factories have been leaving China for years by Nocturrne · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is not new. Entire industries have been slowly moving to lower labor cost or lower political risk countries for many years. I've been in the consumer electronics business, watching the labor cost in China rise and rise for over 20yrs. It's not politics or conspiracy - just a natural economic rebalancing. China has entered "interesting" times... It will be interesting to see how well the people tolerate the totalitarian assholes when the economy collapses.

    1. Re:Factories have been leaving China for years by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Their economy is going through the same tradition that western ones did, from low level manufacturing to skills and services based.

      The government has been doing a huge amount to make that transition easier, with a heavy focus on education. Industries such as electric vehicles and renewable energy are seen as key, with China aiming to dominate in order to secure those future jobs.

      These changes are never easy, but the government is well aware of what needs to happen to keep people happy.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  11. Question by dcw3 · · Score: 1

    Honest question. Does India have anything that it manufactures that's high tech and high quality?

    --
    Just another day in Paradise
    1. Re:Question by ArchieBunker · · Score: 2

      We know for sure it isn't toilets or sanitation products.

      --
      Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
    2. Re:Question by ghoul · · Score: 1

      Samsung and Huawei have long manufactured in India. Apple was the odd one out.
      India also manufactures ICs and chips for electronics like TVs etc. It does not have a CPU fab though the govt is trying to get Intel or AMD to set one up. Lot of the VLSI design work for both is already done in India.

      --
      **Life is too short to be serious**
    3. Re:Question by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      India is now up to about 90% of housholds having a toilet: https://www.statista.com/chart...

      They built 80 million of the things.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    4. Re:Question by sonamchauhan · · Score: 1

      Yes, several spots of very high technology where the Government intervened early - like in telecom:
      http://www.cdot.in/cdotweb/web...

      But it's not consistent -- note the PHP website.

  12. Bollywood movies! by thesjaakspoiler · · Score: 1

    The only and obvious correct answer.

  13. Re:6%+ growth might seem slow to them by Nocturrne · · Score: 2

    Don't believe the hype. Real GDP in China is negative. The 6% number is completely fabricated by the government, mostly based on heavily manipulated government investment and real estate. I have lived in China about half of the time for the last 20yrs. Many of our suppliers have closed or collapsed and reformed into different industries to try to survive. Our country (USA) has a real economy and freedoms the people of China are still dreaming of.

  14. Re:6%+ growth might seem slow to them by sound+vision · · Score: 2

    They have definitely inflated some numbers to make things look more enticing to foreign investors, but the reality is definitely growth, and not contraction. All the cargo-cult stuff going on in China to game the system - the building of empty high-rises, hiring whiteface performers to make your company seem Western - all of that falseness has been declining the last few years.

    They inflated the GDP to get capitalists to send foreign money into China. It worked like a charm, kickstarted their economy, and established probably the world's biggest manufacturing base. Now that that process is nearing completion, you might see a few factories move around at the margins, but that doesn't change the tide. Apple's move in particular is more about what's going on in India, not China. They want to be sure as Indians buy their first smartphone, that they have cheap iPhones available to lock them in. Unless your first phone is an iPhone, there isn't much incentive to switch to Apple later.

  15. Re:You're deluded by Nocturrne · · Score: 1

    It was growing for a long time, yes. The days of growth are over though.

  16. Re:6%+ growth might seem slow to them by Nocturrne · · Score: 2

    The trade deficit is not domestic China GDP. I am in China and know what I see from my suppliers, about half of which have collapsed over the last 5yrs. You think you know what is going on, but you are just quoting what you read from the news media.

  17. Does India have anything that it manufactures that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    India has been making and launching satellites for donkey years now. India even had a Nokia factory(when Nokia phones were was selling)which made 300,000 phones per day.India has tech centers of all high tech companies where lots of vlsi design is done. India recently successfully tested an anti satillite missile.All global auto makers have indian plants which make decent cars. India has a middle class whose size is more than the population of USA

  18. So their intention of producing in the US? by houghi · · Score: 1

    Probably just based on mixing up India and Indiana. They are not the first to mix this up.

    Other places they where interested in building are Georgia and New Mexico.

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  19. Indian Market by ghoul · · Score: 2

    This production is for the Indian Market not for export. Indian govt was getting worried as it has a large trade deficit and the largest item on it is electronics (even more than oil) so they were pushing manufacturers to manufacture in India instead of importing fully built units. Parts will still come from Japan, China,USA,Korea, Taiwan and UK as for other iPhones but having it being manufactured in India does reduce the import bill substantially. As a plus side if Apple wants to set up Apple stores in India , 51% of the goods sold in those stores need to be made in India (thats the standard rule for single brand retail in India) and having Indian made iPhones makes it easy to hit that %age

    --
    **Life is too short to be serious**
  20. Re:Why is this "news"? by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 1

    Trade secrets existed in Roman law. Copyright existed since the development of the printing press, with some earlier restriction on who could view or copy sacred documents. That is not even counting the "Ark of the Covenant", used to encase the 10 commandments of Hebrew law, as a form of copyright protection. There are even some signs that ancient Greece had patents.

    Modern corporations and modern law have refined the practice to a ludicrous extent in many cases. But that hardly makes it a "new concept"..

  21. Re:Why is this "news"? by couchslug · · Score: 1

    You must be old here.

    --
    "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."