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Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo called it – Apple is doing early manufacturing work on the iPhone 17 in a factory in India, not China, as has been the case in the past. The article by The Information highlights the importance of this milestone.
What Apple is doing right now is called “New Production Introduction” – figuring out how to turn a prototype design into a real product suitable for mass manufacture. Previously, this work was done in China. Note that this applies only to the vanilla iPhone 17, not the Pro or Pro Max and not the new iPhone 17 Slim that will replace the Plus.
Cupertino wants to diversify its supply chain as it was entirely reliant on China. The plan for now is to move 25% of the manufacturing capacity to India. It was already building vanilla iPhones in India and this year it started also building iPhone 16 Pro units. Just yesterday Bloomberg reported that Apple has exported $6 billion worth of India-made iPhones over the last six months.
Anyway, the iPhone 16 series is barely out of the door, the iPhone 17 will be introduced late next year. But figuring out how to build millions of phones is no easy task. Even at this point, leaked information is coming out to offer a peek of what the iPhone 17 series will be like.