Good news for Apple fanboys continues to trickle in this week, with a new Bloomberg report saying the Cupertino-based giant is now close to starting trial production of the iPhone X series in India.
The report, quoting sources, says that Apple along with Foxconn is going to start making the high-end variant of iPhones, but they won’t be sold in the market for consumers, just yet. The trial production by Foxconn will take place from its plant in Chennai.
This development comes at a time, when another of Apple’s assembly partners in the country, Wistron, is going to start production of iPhone 7 series in the country, and those will be sold to consumers.
To meet the demands of locally manufacturing latest iPhones in India, Foxconn, according to the report, will invest about $300 million to set up with Apple in the country.
It’s been said time and again, that local sourcing and assembly of iPhones for Apple will ensure that the prices of the products come down, making it accessible to buyers, which isn’t the case right now.
With the competition going for the kill, it’s high time Apple begins local assembly of iPhones for the Indian market, which as we all know is the second biggest mobile market in the world after China, and more than 400 million people are still waiting to get on board.
The report, quoting Neil Shah from Counterpoint says that in the first two months of 2019, Apple shipped about 150,000 devices in India and is likely to see a 50 percent drop in the March quarter from the previous year.
And these numbers are easy to register, especially when the competition is offering more features without costing a bomb, which Apple iPhones (starting at Rs 99,999) do in the country.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)