India will emerge as the main manufacturing hub for iPhones available in the United States in the June quarter, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook has announced. The decision demonstrates the tech company's accelerated drive to relocate its supply chain out of China.
Bragging during Apple's quarterly earnings call following a strong March quarter, Cook pointed out that tariffs today are determined by where something is produced. "For June, we do expect the overwhelming majority of iPhones sold in the US to have India as country of origin and Vietnam to be the country of origin for almost all iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and AirPods products sold in the US," he stated.
While India and Vietnam will handle most US-bound manufacturing, China will still be Apple's biggest production center for outside markets. "China would still be the country of origin for the vast majority of total product sales outside of the US," Cook added.
Cook also clarified the company's exposure to the global tariffs that were announced earlier this year. "For clarity and transparency, the vast majority of our products like iPhone, Mac, iPad, Apple Watch and Vision Pro are not exposed to the global reciprocal tariffs that were announced in April," he said.
Despite this, Apple puts the impact of US tariffs at around $900 million on its costs for the April–June quarter. "We estimate the effect assuming that current global tariff rate policies and applications remain unchanged for the rest of the quarter to be $900,000,000 to our cost," Cook said. He also added that subsequent impacts are not yet certain as there is always a possibility of further policy adjustments.
As Apple continues its shift in manufacturing strategy, Apple also has aggressive chip purchasing plans. In 2025, Apple will buy over $19 billion worth of chips from plants in a dozen US states, with some of the most advanced chips already produced in Arizona this year.
Highlighting Apple's software launches, Cook stated that the recently released iOS 18.4 has added Apple Intelligence features to additional languages. These include French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Simplified Chinese. The English localization has also been enhanced for Singapore and Indian users.
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