The Indian unit of Jabil Inc. has begun shipping AirPods enclosures to China and Vietnam, where the wireless earphones are assembled, a Bloomberg report said, citing people familiar with the matter.
With this, AirPods would be the second Apple product after the iPhone to be partially manufactured in the country.
US manufacturing services provider Jabil operates a 858,000 square foot (80,000 square meter) facility employing more than 2,500 workers in Pune, according to its website.
The development comes after Apple in October had reportedly asked its suppliers to move some AirPods and Beats headphone production to India.
Apple is reducing its dependence on China in view of Covid-related disruptions that affected the production at the world’s biggest iPhone factory.
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Meanwhile, India earlier this month gave initial clearances to more than a dozen of Apple’s Chinese suppliers to expand in the country via joint ventures with Indian partners.Luxshare Precision Industry, one of Apple’s Chinese suppliers which makes AirPods, is among the companies gaining that approval, according to a Bloomberg report.
Luxshare in 2020 agreed to take over a shuttered Motorola plant in Tamil Nadu, but is yet to begin manufacturing Apple products locally.
Apple is looking to shift some of its production out of China, which makes nearly 98% of iPhones. Its partner Hon Hai last year began making the iPhone 14 in the country just weeks after the model’s global launch.
Apple exported more than $2.5 billion of its devices from India from April to December, the report said.
Meanwhile, Foxconn is also reportedly preparing to make Beats headphones in India and hopes to eventually produce AirPods in the country as well.
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