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Only 50% of iPhone Casings Made in India Meet Apple's Quality Standards

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Apple is facing difficulties scaling up its production operations in India amid poor component yields and slow progress, the Financial Times reports.

iPhone-14-Opens-From-Back.jpeg
Image via iFixit​


The company is apparently contending with immense difficulties in ramping up production in the country. At a factory in Hosur run by Apple supplier Tata that manufactures iPhone casings, only one in every two components coming off the production line "is in good enough shape" to be sent forward to assembly at Foxconn. The 50 percent yield is particularly low for almost any production operation and works against Apple's "zero-defect" manufacturing and environmental goals.

Former Apple engineers told the Financial Times that Chinese iPhone suppliers and government officials have a "whatever it takes" approach to win iPhone orders, describing how work was often completed weeks ahead of schedule at "inexplicable speed." Operations in India, on the other hand, are not running at this pace. "There just isn't a sense of urgency," one Apple engineer remarked.

Apple is apparently focused on a long term plan to improve manufacturing proficiency in the country. The company has sent product designers and engineers from California and China to factories in southern India to train locals and help set up production operations, according to four individuals who purport to be familiar with the matter.

Apple began producing entry-level iPhone models, starting with the iPhone SE, in India in 2017. Last year, Apple significantly stepped up its production in India, building some iPhone 14 models in the country within weeks of their launch in China.

Tata is said to have ambitions to become a full-service Apple supplier in the future and is in talks to take over a troubled Wistron iPhone assembly plant in Karnataka. Apple's long-term plan to diversify its global supply chain continues.

Article Link: Only 50% of iPhone Casings Made in India Meet Apple's Quality Standards
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2023/02/14/only-half-of-indian-iphone-casings-meet-standards/
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Only tangentially related, but it occurred to me that Apple TV+ cancelling Shantaram could be related to individuals in India feeling it shows the country in a poor light. The show was given the green light well before Covid, and much more than ever, Apple needs the cooperation of governments in India to expand manufacturing efforts in the country.

i couldn’t imagine Apple giving the go ahead today for a similar show that is set against government corruption in China.
 
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I remember listening to the Howard Stern show a number of years ago when Robin Quivers said she went on vacation to India. She said on the way from the airport to her hotel that what she saw and what she smelled disgusted her so much that she had the driver turn around and go back to the airport and she left without ever staying.
 
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DelayedGratificationGene said:
Southeast Asia is a better bet then it’s ultimately robots.
Click to expand...
Robots aren't an easy answer either. While robots can replace certain low-skill workers, more robots means you need more industrial engineers on hand to program, maintain, and repair those robots. I haven't looked in a while, but last report I read showed that nearly every country including the US (except China) is not graduating enough new young industrial engineers. That's one of the main things holding back manufacturing in the US - those giant mega plants in China are impossible in the US because we just don't have enough industrial engineers to staff them. I cannot imagine that Southeast Asia is doing much better in terms of educating enough industrial engineers.
 
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This is a process that takes time. Years. We'll get there. You think Chinese factories would have passed Apple's modern quality standards when it opened up it's economy in the early 80's? Nope. It's an investment of not only money, but time and this is expected. The more Apple diversifies, the better. #AAPL
 
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Interesting that you've decided to use the verb "to purport" when talking about your sources on Apple engineers training people at Indian factories... Especially because "purport" implies it appears as false. Which means these sources can't be trusted at all?

Also, the reason Chinese factories are able to produce Apple's hardware at "inexplicable speeds" is because : modern slavery. It's not because the Chinese workers in those factories are more skilled than the Indians or whatever, it's because the Chinese workers are under tremendous amounts of pressure to produce by an authoritarian regime that will literally kill them if they don't almost kill themselves working incredible long hours. It's not "inexplicable", it's how 80-90% of the modern supply chain works nowadays. But of course, we don't talk about that. Instead, we talk about how "inexplicable" it is... Come on
 
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AlixSPQR said:
My 13 mini will be my last iPhone, since they are too expensive from now on, apart from too big. Apple wants too much profit from me. I'm not buying it. Maybe if there comes along a mini-like iPhone again, I'll change my mind.
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The prices haven’t really moved and there are not enough people who wanted the mini for it to be an annual release. Apple should not lower their profits just because you want cheap stuff.
 
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I have been working with a company from India and ... well.

To be honest they can be glad that 50% of the cases are OK.

India is a large country, but in many regions standards are very, very low. And to me it seemed that the attitude of the people is very different from the attitude of Chinese people.
 
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TSE said:
This is a process that takes time. Years. We'll get there. You think Chinese factories would have passed Apple's modern quality standards when it opened up it's economy in the early 80's? Nope. It's an investment of not only money, but time and this is expected. The more Apple diversifies, the better. #AAPL
Click to expand...
except how much time does india need, india and china had the same economic mfr capacity in the a early 80's.
 
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