Last month Apple opened the doors to its two offline stores in India’s Mumbai and Delhi. The Cupertino-based tech giant has three contract manufacturers in India namely Foxconn, Pegatron, and Wistron. Now according to a research firm TrendForce, Tata Group is set to become Apple’s fourth contract manufacturer following its acquisition of Taiwanese firm Wistron factory in South India. Apple currently has three contract manufacturers in India namely Foxconn, Pegatron, and Luxshare. Foxconn is one of the company’s oldest contract manufacturers. Taiwanese firm Wistron was set to wind down its India operations once Tata Group takes over its manufacturing plant in Karnataka. Now, the Indian conglomerate has reportedly acquired Wistron’s production line in the country. This marks Wistron’s exit from iPhone assembly business in India. 

As per the report, Tata Group has received orders for the next-generation iPhone 15 and 15 Plus models that are set to debut later this year. This indicates that India will become the first wave of shipments for the new iPhone series. The research firm states that the Indian conglomerate will get a small chunk of iPhone 15 and 15 Plus production. It will only assemble 5 percent of both models. Foxconn and Luxshare will assemble 70 and 25 percent of the regular variant respectively. Luxshare and Pegatron are said to get  60 and 35 percent of assembly orders of the Plus variant respectively. 

As for the iPhone 15 Pro models, Foxconn will get 70 percent of assembly orders of the Pro and Pro Max. Pegatron will get the rest of the 30 percent share of the former whereas the latter will be taken up by Luxshare. 

Trendforce says that as per Apple’s patterns, new suppliers receive smaller orders for the lower-end models. This could be a pilot move and if everything goes well, Tata Group could get a higher percentage of manufacturing iPhone units next year. 

India is the second-largest smartphone market. Apple has been locally producing iPhones in the country since 2017 and is also ramping up its manufacturing efforts. The company has also been witnessing growth in India. The Cupertino-based tech giant is aiming to reduce its dependency on China (due to various reasons) by shifting its production facilities to other countries.