iPhone 17 Manufacturing Reaches Key Milestone as Launch Nears

Foxconn has begun importing iPhone 17 parts from China to India for proceedings production, marking a important measurement up of the device's expected motorboat successful September.


According to customs information reviewed by The Economic Times, Foxconn, Apple's superior declaration assembler, began receiving shipments of captious components specified arsenic show assemblies, screen glass, mechanical housings, and integrated rear camera modules astatine its Indian facilities successful June. These components relationship for astir 10% of Foxconn's full imports from China for the month, with the remainder allocated to different iPhone models, including the ‌iPhone‌ 14 and iPhone 16.

Industry experts cited by The Economic Times construe the standard of the shipments arsenic indicative of early-stage proceedings production. Mass accumulation is seemingly scheduled to statesman successful August, successful clip for motorboat successful September.

India has already begun to enactment successful Apple's New Product Introduction (NPI) process, which governs the aboriginal stages of caller exemplary improvement and antecedently took spot exclusively successful China; it joined the NPI process for the ‌iPhone 16‌ and ‌iPhone 16‌ Plus successful 2024. This allowed accumulation to statesman astir simultaneously successful some countries, a important displacement from the ‌iPhone‌ 14, erstwhile manufacturing successful India began six weeks aft the China ramp-up.

For the ‌iPhone 17‌, Apple is reportedly targeting same-day accumulation starts successful some China and India for the archetypal time. Sources cited by DigiTimes suggest that Apple intends to deepen its manufacturing footprint successful India arsenic portion of its program to diversify its proviso chain, with Foxconn playing a cardinal relation nether India's Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme.

However, the effort has encountered challenges. Recent reports person pointed to the caller mass departure of Chinese engineers from Foxconn's Indian facilities. These individuals were liable for mill design, precision machining, and worker training, which are indispensable functions during the aboriginal phases of ‌iPhone‌ assembly. An enforcement quoted by The Economic Times said:

Chinese engineers are important due to the fact that iPhone 17 manufacturing involves analyzable precision machining of galore tiny parts, and adjacent a 1mm quality tin origin a merchandise to neglect prime testing. They are needed to bid employees connected the intricate assembly processes and circumstantial molds for components.


Despite these complications, the Indian authorities seemingly remains optimistic. A root quoted by the Press Trust of India (PTI) said that the instrumentality of Chinese method unit to China volition person "no impact" connected the accumulation of the ‌iPhone 17‌.

The root added that Apple continues to standard accumulation according to program and noted that import bottlenecks for machinery and instrumentality needed for large-scale manufacturing person begun to ease. The full ‌iPhone 17‌ lineup is expected to motorboat successful the fall.
This article, "iPhone 17 Manufacturing Reaches Key Milestone arsenic Launch Nears" archetypal appeared connected MacRumors.com

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