Apple is now building its latest iPhone 13 handsets in India

Iphone 13 Pro Ios 15 Hero
Iphone 13 Pro Ios 15 Hero (Image credit: Christine Romero-Chan / iMore)

What you need to know

  • Apple is now building iPhone 13 handsets in India.
  • A Foxconn plant in Sriperumbudur has begun iPhone 13 production.
  • Apple continues to reduce its reliance on factories located in China.

Apple is now building iPhone 13 handsets in India, the company has confirmed. The news comes as the company continues its work to reduce its reliance on the Chinese supply chain following two years of COVID-19 pandemic-related supply issues.

The new production is confirmed by a Reuters report that notes the devices are being built out of a Foxconn plant in the town of Sriperumbudur in Southern Tamil Nadu state.

This isn't the first time that an iPhone has been assembled in India, of course. Previous iPhone SE and iPhone 12 models have previously been built there, although this is the first time that the latest iPhone 13 devices have been added to the mix. Reuters reports that Apple is also planning to begin iPad assembly in the country, too.

It isn't just Apple and India, either. Many companies continue to move production worldwide to deal with an over-reliance on Chinese production.

India and countries such as Mexico and Vietnam are becoming increasingly important to contract manufacturers supplying American brands as they try to diversify production away from China.

As ever, the best iPhone is the iPhone you can walk into an Apple Store and actually buy, something that has been a problem for Apple. Production issues aren't an iPhone-specific problem, either. The company's AirPods Max suffered from terrible shortages at launch while even today, buying a new Mac Studio will mean a long wait for delivery. Apple, like other companies, currently faces production delays due to a variety of problems — not least a worldwide semiconductor shortage.

Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.