iPhone 16 Pro series will be the first Pro models to be assembled in India: report | Tech Tips

Apple will be launching its next flagship, the iPhone 16 series in September. There will be four models in the lineup and we have come across the US pricing of the phones. In a new revelation, it has now been reported that Apple will be assembling the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max in India. This will be the first time Apple assembles Pro models in the country. 

Apple to assemble iPhone 16 Pro series in India

• According to a report by Bloomberg, Foxconn will begin the assembly of the iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max within weeks of their global launch, in September.
• This can be seen as a move to diversify the production beyond China, the report added. 
• To that extent, an alleged tear-off tab packaging for ‌iPhone 16 Pro‌ has surfaced on Weibo and this reads, “Designed by Apple in California and Assembled in India.” But we cannot verify the authenticity of the same at the moment.

• This reiterates a report from July, which said that Apple’s supplier Foxconn will be making the iPhone 16 Pro models at the Sriperumbudur factory in Tamil Nadu.
• Initially, Apple will meet the demand by relying on exports. It would start local assembly shortly after the launch in mid-September after the new production process is complete.
• This is the first time that Apple is assembling the Pro variants in India as the vanilla models were earlier assembled locally.
• Furthermore, the Bloomberg report notes that training for thousands of workers has already started at the factory in Tamil Nadu, in a push to fast forward the production of the models as close to the global debut as possible.
• Besides Foxconn, Pegatron Corp and Tata Group could also begin assembling the iPhone 16 Pro variants in India soon, as per the report.

Locally made iPhone 16 Pro models will help Apple to cut prices by as much as 10 percent compared with imported devices, which will attract import duties. However, even then the iPhone 16 Pro models will be expensive in India.

While Apple continues to produce iPhones in China, it is slowly diversifying this to other markets like India, mainly to lessen its risks related to the US and China weakening relations. This has reportedly resulted in Apple assembling close to $14 billion of iPhones in India in the fiscal year through March 2024. This accounts for around 14 percent of the global output.

Sources familiar with the matter say that Apple intends to make the ‘Made in India’ standard iPhone 16 available on the very day the phones go on sale across the world. The ‘India-made’ iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max will be exported to the Middle East, Europe, and the US, considering the demand for the Pro variants in India will be comparatively less.