Apple surpasses Samsung to become largest smartphone exporter from India by volume: Report

For the first time, Apple has surpassed its South Korean counterpart Samsung in smartphone export volumes from India, reported Economic Times on 22 September.

According to the report, Apple shipped 49 percent of the country's total 12 million smartphone shipments in the June quarter, compared to Samsung's 45 percent export.

LiveMint couldn’t verify the report independently.

As per the industry executives, quoted in the report, Apple’s share of exports soared from barely 9 percent of the roughly 8 million smartphones shipped in the second quarter of 2022 to almost half the total smartphone exports in Q2 2023.

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Details say, that in the March quarter of 2023, India's exports were around 13 million and fell to 12 million in the June quarter.

Robust performance:

The rise in Apple's performance began after it started manufacturing in India in 2017 and further a ramp-up in production by three of its contract manufacturers — Foxconn, Wistron, and Pegatron — from the second half of 2022 with the production of iPhone 14 and previous models. The iPhone manufacturer has been focused to meeting demand within the Indian as well as global markets.

Apart from this, the Indian government's production-linked incentive scheme for smartphone manufacturing helped Apple's all three contract manufacturers —Foxconn, Wistron, and Pegatron. The report added that the PLI scheme played a crucial role in encouraging and boosting Apple's manufacturing operations in India.

New development:

As per the ET report, Foxconn has already started making the latest iPhone 15 at its Chennai plant, which experts see Apple’s desire to turn India into an export hub for iPhones.

By diversifying its production and leveraging manufacturing capabilities in India, Apple is aiming to cut its dependency on China, citing ongoing geopolitical tensions.

Global slump:

Be it a global downturn in demand for Samsung or a surge for other brands, the fall in exports by Samsung and other Android smartphone brands from India has impacted smartphone brands, resulting in reduced export volumes.

The latest drop in Samsung's share of export volumes from India – from a dominating 84 percent in Q2 2022 to 45 percent in Q2 2023 – depicts a major shift in the dynamics of the smartphone export market, the report said. This may be due to several factors including increased competition, evolving market trends, changes in consumer preferences, and a global slump in demand for Android smartphones.