As Apple makes its way through the changing landscape of global trade, a new strategy is unfolding: a shift of its iPhone export base from China to India and funnelling almost all of it directly into the U.S. Based on exclusive customs records, a whopping 97% of iPhones exported from Foxconn’s Indian factories between March and May 2025 were sent to the United States. That’s an intense shift from the 2024 average of just above 50%, which indicates Apple’s desperation to avoid punitive tariffs on Chinese-made products.

Troubling Tariffs

The shift follows as a result of rising trade tensions, as President Donald Trump on Wednesday confirmed Chinese products, including electronics, would be charged 55% tariffs in a new bilateral proposal. India is still charged a baseline tariff of 10%, but is much lower than the duties imposed upon China. Trump’s previous commitment to charging India a 26% “reciprocal” tariff has been suspended while the two sides engage in negotiations.

Apple, expecting more protectionist measures, has acted quickly to diversify its supply chain. The outcomes are already apparent, between the first five months of 2025, Foxconn shipped $4.4 billion worth of iPhones from India to the U.S, exceeding the $3.7 billion amount for all of 2024.

India’s Emergence as an iPhone Exporting Giant

Previously viewed as a subsidiary production facility, India is quickly emerging as Apple’s primary export hub. Foxconn’s May shipments of iPhones to the U.S. totalled nearly $1 billion, which is the second-highest export month in history, after a record of $1.3 billion in March.

Tata Electronics, Apple’s more recent and smaller iPhone manufacturer in India, is also doing the same thing. During March to April 2025, 86% of Tata’s exports headed to the U.S, up from 52% for all of 2024. Tata only started exporting last July, but it’s catching up rapidly in volume, consistency and dependability.

High Stakes

To speed up this change, Apple has leased planes to transport iPhones straight from India to the United States, with $2 billion worth of iPhone 13, 14, 16, and 16e devices dispatched in March alone. Behind the scenes, Apple has also approached Indian airport officials and pressured them to reduce customs clearance times at Chennai International Airport from 30 hours to 6. Though Apple refused to comment, the figures tell a lot about its desire to lessen reliance on China and bet against future policy uncertainty.

India’s Manufacturing Ecosystem

Even with the ramp-up in production, India’s manufacturing ecosystem is not free of woes. Though Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been actively promoting India as a world smartphone production hub, import duties on crucial components remain too high, making it a more expensive proposition than most of its competitors.

Still, analysts are optimistic. Prachir Singh, senior analyst at Counterpoint Research, said,

“We expect made-in-India iPhones to account for 25% to 30% of global iPhone shipments in 2025, as compared to 18% in 2024”.

Political Criticism

Apple’s India plan hasn’t quite won Washington’s plaudits. Trump himself has criticized the company for shifting manufacturing abroad, telling it in May, “We are not interested in you building in India, India can take care of themselves, they are doing very well, we want you to build here”. However, in the presence of trade headwinds, Apple’s behaviour betrays a cost and compliance analysis, not praises it.

Apple’s India move is more than a strategic sidestep around Trump tariffs; it’s a warning shot in the global reshaping of technology production. This isn’t about low costs or speed to market exports, rather it’s about resilience, sovereignty, and future-proofing. 

With China’s status as a manufacturing monolith coming under growing suspicion and the U.S. exerting tariffs like a bulldozer, Apple’s India foray could be the template for the decade ahead in global tech supply chains. But this shift is not so sweet to India’s economic strategy. It’s a corporate choice with bottom-line necessity. If this transition introduces global tech giants into India’s industrial sphere and its over-dependence on China, it’s a win-win situation with a catch.