The Indian government has proposed to American tech giant Apple to work towards generating annual production output worth $50 billion in India, Times of India reported. The Centre's proposal comes as part of its attempt to push the 'Make in India' campaign further into the tech sector of the country. The Centre has asked Apple to generate the target production output over a span of 5-6 years. The tech giant was also asked to expand its locally-made product kitty beyond iPhones to include Macbooks, iPads, air pods and watch.
According to the report, a high-level meeting was held between top government officials and the senior functionaries from Apple. The iPhone maker company was asked to develop India as a global sourcing base and manufacture fully-built products in the country that could later be exported from India to countries across the world, similar to its operations in China.
During the meeting, the government told Apple officials that India is setting up an enabling environment to give a massive push to electronics manufacturing in the country, with a big eye on exports. The enabling environment includes production-linked incentive (PLI) schemes to encourage companies to invest in, and grow, manufacturing in India. Also, capital subsidy plans are being given out, such as the one allotted for kickstarting semiconductor manufacturing where the government has extended support of $10 billion for those willing to invest.
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At present, the Tim-Cook led company's manufacturing operations in India is very small compared to the demand for the firm's products globally. The production remained low even after the top production partners of the tech firm including the Taiwanese trio of Foxconn, Wistron and Pegatron, set their base in India. China, on the other hand, produces nearly 95% of Apple's goods. Currently, Apple only manufactures iPhones in India. However, the latest version, iPhone13 was not made in India.
Earlier, the Electronics and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw also met several leaders of the Indian electronics business and assured the businessmen that the country is planning to boost electronics manufacturing. The IT Minister has also said that he is expecting the segment to grow from the current $75 billion to around $250 billion in the next 5-6 years. Vaishnaw's meeting also included representatives from Apple and its manufacturing partners.
The Tim Cook-led tech firm had generated revenue worth $3 billion in India for the financial year 2020-21 (FY21) and recorded a growth of 68%. However, a large portion of this revenue was generated from imported Apple products. The Apple products manufactured in India constituted a comparatively smaller portion of the revenue from sales.
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The Centre's move to push production of a larger quantity of Apple products in the country is aimed at covering the gap of revenue generated from the imported Apple products in comparison to the sale of India made products. It is also aimed at making the tech giant reply more on India and make it the base for global exports of Apple products similar to China.
