iPhones made in India are disliked by European and Chinese consumers, which has a wide impact. This result actually reflects the huge gap between manufacturing in India and manufacturing in China. This is undoubtedly a considerable blow to the Make in India plan proposed by Modi.
After Modi took office as Prime Minister of India in 2014, he proposed the Made in India strategy. The initial progress of Made in India was very slow, leaving India at a loss. It was not until India opened up the mobile phone market and attracted Chinese mobile phone companies to enter the Indian market that Made in India saw the light of day. improvement.
In 2017, a Chinese mobile phone company joined forces with Foxconn to set up a factory in India to produce mobile phones. From this, Indian manufacturing finally began to take off, and Chinese mobile phones also benefited from this. The first place in the Indian mobile phone market was quickly won by Chinese mobile phone companies, and subsequently many Chinese companies Mobile phone companies have set up factories in India, and these mobile phone companies have successively entered the top five in the Indian mobile phone market.
The success of China's mobile phone industry has laid the foundation for Apple to promote manufacturing in India. In 2019, Foxconn and Apple cooperated to set up a factory in India. In 2020, Wistron even sold its Chinese mobile phone foundry and went all-out to set up a factory in India. At this time, manufacturing in India is gradually Showing the momentum of rapid growth, Foxconn even called out to build another Foxconn in India.
Contrary to the ambitions of these companies, as they set up factories in India on a large scale, the problem of manufacturing in India gradually emerged. The high-intensity labor of Foxconn and Wistron is unbearable for Indian workers. For more than two years, there have been repeated reports of shutdowns in their Indian factories, and the shutdowns are often caused by minor problems.
Another problem faced by these Apple OEMs in India is the lack of industrial chain in India. Many mobile phone accessories need to be transported from China, resulting in high production costs and low production efficiency. In contrast, the production lines of Foxconn’s Zhengzhou factory can obtain them on time. The supply and production efficiency of the industrial chain are much higher than those in India.
The quality of iPhones assembled in India is not high. At the end of last year, it was reported that the yield rate of iPhones made in India was only half. The gaps in the iPhones produced are too large, and the quality cannot be compared with those made in China. This is related to the low cultural level of Indian workers. , Nowadays, many mobile phone accessories are produced using high-end equipment such as CNC machine tools. Such workers cannot adapt to the level of modern production technology.
This time, Apple hurriedly handed over the latest iPhone 15 to India for production, further exposing the problems of manufacturing in India. This is because every new iPhone will have changes in design, so the factory must produce while producing. Work with the industry chain to identify problems and improve them.
It is difficult for manufacturing in India to meet such requirements, because the iPhone accessories produced in India need to be transported from China, and it cannot improve the industrial chain in time. As a result, the iPhone 15 produced this time has even greater problems, so much so that there are rumors that a box of iPhone 15 has appeared in Europe. Half of the iPhones have problems that do not meet the standards and are returned, which is completely impossible to happen in Chinese foundries.
In order to calm the anger of European consumers, Apple reportedly decided that the iPhone 15 made in India will no longer be supplied to Europe, but will only be supplied to the local Indian market and the Chinese market, while all iPhone 15 made in China will be supplied to the European market. This has caused Chinese consumers to Particularly dissatisfied, some netizens even introduced online how to identify the iPhone 15 made in India.
These problems with the iPhone 15 remind Apple and its foundries that the level of manufacturing in India is too far behind that of manufacturing in China. They are too eager to hand over the latest iPhone 15 to India. Manufacturing in India simply cannot undertake such a task. Made in India There is still a long way to go to reach the technical level required by Apple.