Apple, the TIM Cook CEO: « The majority of the iPhones sold in the USA by the second quarter will be made in India »

Apple changes route, or rather: rewrites its industrial geography. During the last call with investors, the CEO TIM Cook In fact, he announced that the iPhones intended for the American market will be mostly « Made in India»Starting from this second quarter. As for iPad, MacBook, Apple Watch and AirPods, the models will come from Vietnam.

Objective: reduce dependence from China

It is a strong signal: Cupertino aims to reduce the dependence on Beijing and Redesign your global production chain Faced with the new geopolitical tensions and thus respond to the growing tariff pressure imposed by the United States on the assets imported from China, on which Apple still depends for about 80% of its global production. The company provides that the duties imposed by President Donald Trump will cause a negative impact of 900 million dollars on the accounts of the second quarter.

The US government recently announced duties up to 145% on some Chinese goods, against 26% imposed on products from India. This imbalance would have accelerated the reorganization of the Apple production chain: according to the subcontinent’s printing estimates, Cupertino would have already produced in India between 40 and 45 million iPhones in 2024while in March 2025 alone, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence, 98% of the iPhones exported by India were directed to the American market, for a total of about 3.1 million units.

The impact of duties

Apple’s move represents a decisive response to the new wave of duties wanted by Washington, which cOlpients Chinese products with rates up to 145%a serious blow for a company that still produces about 80% of its devices in China today. Only in the second quarter, according to company sources, the estimated impact on the budget is 900 million dollars. Faced with this scenario, Apple seems to have decided to accelerate the movement in India, where the duties stop at 26%, and could go down again, if the ventilated agreement from Trump in these days should take shape.

Meanwhile, the production of gadgets with the bitten apple is in full turmoil: in 2024 they were made between 40 and 45 million iPhones, of which 3.1 million shipped to the US only in March 2025. And here opens the chapter of the expansion of the Cupertino company in the Subcontinentand, where it would already be at work with its Indian partners, including Tata Electronics and Foxconn, to increase the
local production capacity.

Production in India

Just in recent days, Reuters reported that the new plant Tata Electronics of Hosur, in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, has officially started the production of less recent iPhone models, while the Foxconn mega-system of Bangalore (Karnataka) one of the largest outside China, is preparing to get in the short term.

Everything, therefore, seems to confirm what is anticipated by Financial Times In recent days: Apple would aim to produce all the iPhones intended for the US market in India, about 60 million a year, by 2026. An ambitious challenge, while pressure arrives from the White House to bring the production at home. Some analysts, however, warn on the pachydermal Indian transfer: infrastructures to be improved, lack of specialized labor and a supply chain to be perfected remain concrete obstacles. But a possible commercial agreement between India and the US, an agreement announced by Trump, could change the cards on the table and give further momentum to the industrial ascent of the Cupertino del Subcontinente company.