Picture: Cult of Mac
Apple’s iPhone manufacturing in India hit a serious hurdle following a hearth at a Tata Electronics plant. The hearth, which occurred over the weekend, will seemingly have a 10-15% impression on the manufacturing of older iPhones.
Extra importantly, Apple will fall again on its suppliers in China to fulfill the element scarcity.
iPhone manufacturing in India to take a serious hit because of the Tata plant hearth
Earlier than COVID, Apple relied closely on China to fabricate its units. Nonetheless, because of the supply-chain disruption induced in the course of the pandemic, the corporate accelerated its plans to make India a secondary manufacturing hub.
The Tata plant at Hosur, Tamil Nadu, made iPhone again panels and different elements. It solely provided Foxconn and its personal iPhone meeting manufacturing facility with this stuff. The hearth at Tata’s plant will reportedly power Apple to fall again on China for sourcing these elements.
The incident occurred forward of the essential festive season in India, the place iPhones are sometimes in excessive demand.
Counterpoint Analysis’s co-founder Neil Shah informed Reuters that the indefinite manufacturing facility shutdown may have a “10-15% impression on manufacturing of older iPhone fashions from India. Apple may offset that impression by importing extra elements, and by re-routing extra export stock in direction of India.”
Apple might ask its Chinese language suppliers to step up
The identical report, citing a supply, claims Apple has about eight weeks’ inventory of the elements. This may guarantee there’s no rapid impression on manufacturing. Nonetheless, if the manufacturing facility doesn’t return on-line in a month or so, Apple will supposedly ask its suppliers in China to arrange one other manufacturing line there.
Indian authorities will examine the fireplace, with early stories suggesting the fireplace induced in depth injury to the plant.
This isn’t the primary time that one in all Apple’s provider factories in India caught hearth. In 2023, a Pegatron manufacturing facility within the nation making iPhone elements caught hearth after a employee apparently failed to show off a change on the finish of the day, inflicting a brief circuit.
