While Apple’s journey in India has made headlines, it hasn’t matched the rapid progress China achieved in a similar early phase, according to journalist Patrick McGee’s book Apple in China, published by Simon & Schuster. McGee, a former Apple reporter at the Financial Times (2019–2023), outlines how Apple became one of the world’s most powerful companies by tying itself closely to China—until the 2022 Shanghai lockdown forced a rethink. One former Apple executive told McGee, “China went from being a reliable supplier to completely unreliable.”
Back in 2018, Tim Cook had projected India as the next China for Apple. But progress over the next five years was limited. Apple was hesitant, and India didn’t offer the same open-door policies Beijing had a decade earlier. India required companies to locally source 30% of components, though this rule was eased in 2017, allowing Apple—through Taiwanese partner Wistron—to begin assembling iPhones locally, which helped cut tariffs and made devices more affordable.
Still, Apple’s India journey was slow. The online Apple Store launched only in 2020, and the first physical store opened in 2023—15 years after Apple’s retail entry into China. Assembly began with budget iPhone SE models and gradually moved to flagship devices. By 2023, India matched China’s distribution timeline, and by 2024, it was assembling Pro models too.
Despite this, McGee argues the pace is far behind China’s. Between 2016 and 2023, India’s iPhone output reached about 15 million units—just 7% of global shipments. In contrast, China’s output grew from zero to 153 million units from 2006 to 2013. “India is scaling at just one-tenth the speed China did,” McGee notes.
Moreover, Apple’s India operations are mostly limited to FATP—Final Assembly, Test, and Pack—handled by Wistron and Foxconn using parts flown in from China. A manufacturing engineer even joked that iPhones are “assembled in China, disassembled there, and then sent to India for reassembly.”
Apple’s long-term goal is to make India fully self-reliant in iPhone production, but that could take another 5–10 years. For now, India remains in a capacity-building phase. A former Apple engineer told McGee that the development pace is slow, and having two assembly bases relying on the same supply chain adds complexity rather than resilience. India’s cheaper labor is also offset by the logistics cost of moving parts from China.
