“We have drawn a road map of indigenisation, in consultation with the industry over the past two years. We have shared it (with Apple) and asked them to align with it… we don’t need to give them any separate concessions. Apple said they will examine this and get back,” said Aruna Sundararajan, secretary to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
Apple did not comment. It had requested the government to grant it 15 years of duty-free import of components to assemble its iPhones in the country, sharing a road map to slowly indigenise products.
The government has instead chalked out its own National Policy on Electronics to achieve its goal of a $400-billion market in the sector by 2020.
Earlier this month, the Cupertino-headquartered firm conducted a trial run for producing its low-cost iPhone SE at Taiwanese contract manufacturer Wistron’s facility in Bengaluru. Apple in a statement said its “Made in India” iPhones would hit store shelves in late May.
“They have big plans for India and they definitely intend, as they have told us, to make all their products in the next phase, for which they are evaluating various options. The first thing they had requested was 15 years of duty-free imports of their components,” said Sundararajan.
India has maintained that it would not offer any concessions specifically to Apple produce smartphones locally, but would instead come up with concessions that would benefit all smartphone makers looking to set up manufacturing operations in the country. It also rejected Apple’s request to set up local plants to refurbish used iPhones, which it intended to offer to local customers at lower prices.
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