In an interview to a private news channel, Karnataka’s IT Minister, Priyank Kharge said that Apple will start assembling its phones in India by end of April in this year. Kharge was highlighting the focus of tech giant in the world’s largest growing market for smartphones, at a time, when the smartphone market is not so positive in other countries.
Apple has tipped in Wistron Corp of Taiwan to execute its long awaited plans in the IT City of India. Some of the Apple executives had met Priyank Kharge in January and that is when the final discussions of the deal had taken place.
Apple has had some mixed days in the last couple of years. Along with registering its biggest numbers in 2016 worldwide, Apple has seen a gradual decline in the sales in countries like China. The latest announcement might just be one of the backup plans to tackle the lost revenue in countries like China and to put together a long term plan to be one of the major OEMs in a country like India, which has a promising future.
Apple seems to have discussed quite a few points with the central government, one of them includes a 15 year tax free period to import equipment and accessories.
Adding to his statement, Kharge added that the devices assembled at the Bengaluru facility, will be targeted to the domestic market and the government is exploring an option of Apple partnering with any of the local assemblers, in case that happens, government will provide full support to the company.
Apple shipped 2.5 million phones in India in 2016, earning a place in top 10 vendors for the December quarter. Apple currently accounts for less than 2% of the smartphones shipped in India, the market which is estimated to ship at least 750 million smartphones by 2020.