Yes, AirPods manufacturing has begun in India
As anticipated, Foxconn has commenced manufacturing Apple’s AirPods for export with production beginning at its Hyderabad facility, even as its rapidly expanding plant in Bengaluru gets set to churn out iPhones in quantity.
India in your ears
Local reports from MoneyControl via the FinancialExpress tell us of the new Apple product manufacturing beginning in India. “Yes, Apple AirPods production at Foxconn’s new Hyderabad facility has started for export purposes,” a source reportedly said.
They also explained that the new Bengaluru iPhone making facility is to, “play a key role in ramping up exports from India.” They said the new plant will have a peak capacity of 20 million units per year, about a third of total US annual demand.
The plant is the second biggest Foxconn factory outside China, the scale of which is already transforming the region.
A change is going to come
Entering into AirPods manufacturing is a big deal and comes as the entire Apple ecosystem intensifies in India. Apple’s other big iPhone partner in India, Tata Group, has also begun making older iPhones at its factory in Hosur, with production set to increase in the coming months. Tata acquired the India factories of Pegatron and Wistron to stake space in Apple’s ecosystem.
With Apple aiming to meet all US iPhone demand with devices made in India should give you some sense of the rapid scale at which Apple’s partners in India will be increasing the scope of their factory investments.
Foxconn’s factory in Bengaluru, for example, is thought to occupy space equivalent to 220 football fields and will employ 40,000 people once fully in place. Apple partners will need to treble that deployment in order to meet full US demand for iPhones.
Deployment is accelerating
At the risk of being a bit of a broken record on this, the frequency with which news is emerging from the burgeoning Apple supply chain as it deploys itself across India speaks to the sheer scale of what is in play here. Apple has spent a decade toward enabling all of this to happen, and now it is happening.
That’s even before we begin to wonder if the AirPods that are being made in India will turn out to be the new models Apple is expected to introduce in the coming weeks.
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