Apple has been ramping up its production lines in India over the last few years, but it doesn’t seem to have the full backing of the current US administration.
US President Donald Trump has said that he’s not interested in Apple building its products in India. “I had a little problem with (Apple CEO) Tim Cook yesterday,” Trump said during his Doha visit. “I said to him, my friend, I am treating you very good. You are coming up with $500 billion but now I hear you are building all over India,” Trump said.
“I don’t want you building in India,” Trump continued. “You can build in India, if you want to take care of India because India is one of the highest tariff nations in the world so it is very hard to sell in India. They (India) has offered us a deal where basically they have agreed to charge us literally no tariffs. I said Tim, we are treating you really good, we put up with all the plants you built in China for years. We are not interested in you building in India. India can take care of themselves,” Trump added.
Trump seemed to be suggesting that the US administration wasn’t particularly keen on Apple investing money in India to build its range of products. Trump hinted that India charged the US high rates of tariffs, so he’d prefer if Apple made its products in the US instead.
Trump’s comments come after Apple has spent the last several years building up its manufacturing muscle in India. This was accelerated after Covid, when Apple realized its reliance on China for manufacturing its products. It had then moved its manufacturing aggressively away from China, and into nations like India and Vietnam.
Apple’s production in India has grown rapidly, with iPhone exports from India reaching $12.8 billion in 2024, a 42% year-on-year increase, and total domestic production hitting $17.5 billion. India now accounts for about 20% of Apple’s global iPhone production, up from 14%, and this share is expected to rise to over 26% in the coming years. Apple has said that it expects that all its iPhones for the US market will be made in India by 2026. Currently, about 80% of iPhones sold in the US are made in China, but Apple aims to move this majority production to India despite manufacturing costs there being 5-8% higher than in China
And it’s this cost advantage that’ll likely keep Apple invested in India, in spite of Donald Trump’s reservations. With China ascendant on the global stage, the US would like to move some of its more critical manufacturing outside its shores. India currently has much of the same characteristics that China had two decades ago when Apple had first started manufacturing in the country, both from a cost and capability perspective. The US, in comparison, will not allow for cost structures that Apple is used to, and phones made in the US would be significantly more expensive than those made in places like India and China. But Trump’s statements are likely a negotiating tactic in his ongoing tariff war, and seem designed primarily to get India to lower its own tariffs on US goods.