Apple Starts Building Popular iPhone 6S in India

Apple recently started building its iPhone 6s in India in order to save costs, according to the Economic Times. 

Two senior executives told the press the popular devices started being build in the Bengaluru facility of its Taiwan-based manufacturer Wistron. The Cupertino-based maker of iPhones and Mac computers started building its most popular products like the iPhone SE within the United States. However, company executives noted that Apple was trying ways to cut costs and boost "sales potential" by producing the phone in India. 

Counterpoint, a Hong-Kong based research group, estimated that the iPhone 6 gives a third of total iPhone sales in India. Counterpoint noted that figure is considerably higher than the mere 15 percent of sales from the iPhone SE.

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The research firm said Samsung beat out Apple in the first quarter of the years due to Samsung's launch of the Galaxy S9, edging out Apple's frequent domination of global smartphone markets. Apple even fell to China's OnePlus during the first quarter, putting the US-based company in third. 

Another company executive said Apple wants to remain competitive. Earlier this year, Apple raised its prices by 7 percent in order to accommodate for the customs duty on smartphones increasing another 5 percent (from 10 percent to 15 percent in December). Most recently, the Indian government imposed an additional 10 percent customs duty on printed circuit boards. This includes those affecting camera modules and connectors. 

The Economic Times reported it will still take some time for Apple to get its manufacturing up to speed and meet its capacity goals. Thus, the company will also import devices from outside the country until manufacturing gets settled. This means for the time being Indian customers shouldn't expect any price cuts in iPhones yet.