Big Tech

iPhone 17 arrives: Apple pulls out of China (but ties up with India)

It will be the Cupertino giant's first phone to be assembled outside Chinese factories. But tariffs and tensions in the region loom.

27 August 2025

3' min read

Looking at it today, the most recurring question is this: who knows whether Tim Cook, in the midst of the Covid emergency, would have chosen India as the home of the new iPhones anyway. The answer, clearly, we cannot know. But a possible repentance of Apple's CEO remains among the most credible hypotheses. Because today, on the eve of the iPhone 17 launch (official arrival date, 9 September next), this series of the Made in Cupertino phone seems to have enormous geopolitical value. Full of novelties and unexpected events. Especially because of the bad trade relations between the US and India, with Trump imposing 50% tariffs.

Let's take a step back, because Apple's Indian path was mapped out many years ago, and is part of the 'China-plus' strategy that Apple has been pursuing since 2016, when the ceo, Tim Cook, met with Prime Minister Modi. A strategy that has led to India accounting for up to 14 % of global iPhone production, up to the 16 family models.

The first experiment dates back to 2017, when the Californian giant entrusted Wistron, a Taiwanese contract manufacturer, with the production of the iPhone SE model in Bengaluru (the capital of the southern Indian state of Karnataka). Initially, as mentioned, it is more of a small-scale experiment, designed for the Indian market and to adapt to local requirements, such as the 30 per cent quota of Indian-origin components.

The red light, the one that gives Tim Cook something bigger than just an idea, then comes with Covid. As the epidemic bites Chinese cities, Xi Jinping imposes unprecedented measures. Even the factories stop. And iPhone production (until now totally Chinese) comes to a standstill, creating quite a few problems for Apple.

Hence the conviction of a plan B. A plan called India, also designed to avoid the geopolitical trap, given the increasingly tense relations between Washington and Beijing. It was in 2020 that Apple brought the first production of premium models to India, starting assembly of the iPhone 11 at a Foxconn facility near Chennai, marking a significant step towards greater manufacturing autonomy in the South Asian country. From there, one piece at a time, iPhones begin to speak more and more Indian.

But it is with the model arriving in the next few days that this process can be said to be complete. Because according to the most qualified sources in the industry, the entire iPhone 17 family will be produced in India. If only those produced for the American market.

The five incoming models (Classic, Plus, Air, Pro and Pro Max) will all come out of Indian factories, thanks to the expansion of production at five plants, including two recently opened ones run by Foxconn (near Bengaluru airport) and Tata (in Hosur, Tamil Nadu). This news marks a historic step for Apple. But it also comes as Donald Trump imposes heavy tariffs on India.

It has to be said that at the moment, iPhones assembled in India remain exempt from US tariffs (unlike the Chinese ones), because they belong to a category that is exempt for now. But most assembly components continue to be manufactured in China and then transported to India for final assembly.

The puzzle, in short, is quite intricate. And we will only find out how much the possible tariffs have impacted Apple when the prices of the new models are made official.

The Indian factor, however, is now clearly central to Apple. So much so that between April and July 2025, India exported iPhones worth around $7.5 billion, almost half of the previous year's total. And Reuters points out that Apple plans to increase its production capacity in India from more than 40 million to around 60 million units per year, with a large portion destined for export, mainly to the US.

In all of this, Foxconn's investment in a $2.8 billion plant in Devanahalli (Bengaluru) is the second largest plant outside of China and testifies to Apple's (which is one of Foxconn's main customers) growing commitment to India, also thanks to government incentives. But the Chinese reaction will have to be closely watched. In recent days, Beijing has ordered the recall of more than 300 engineers from Foxconn's Indian factories, restricting the transfer of technological expertise and underlining tensions in the area. Again, in the middle is Apple.

Biagio SimonettaRedattore
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Lingue parlate: italiano, inglese
Argomenti: Finanza, Fintech, Silicon Valley, Tecnologia
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