India has overtaken China to become the top source of smartphones sold in the US, after Apple shifted to assemble more of its iPhones in the South Asian country.
In the quarter through June, India was the largest manufacturer of smartphones shipped to the US for the first time, accounting for 44 percent of the market, according to Canalys data. Vietnam, home to much of Samsung Electronics’s production, came in second. China fell from having more than 60 percent of all estimated shipments a year ago to just 25 percent.
The stark change comes as Apple ramped up its production in India and smartphone makers “frontload device inventories amid tariff concerns,” Canalys researchers wrote. The volume of made-in-India devices more than tripled in the past quarter from a year earlier. Apple’s iPhone shipments to the US declined by 11 percent, reflecting distortions to its usual pattern due to unusually high shipments to stockpile units earlier in the year.
“Apple built up its inventories rapidly toward the end of Q1 and sought to maintain this level in Q2,” said Runar Bjorhovde, senior analyst at Canalys. “Yet, the market only grew 1 percent despite vendors frontloading inventory, indicating tepid demand in an increasingly pressured economic environment.”
Apple and its peers have been moving production beyond China and into countries such as India and Vietnam to mitigate risks related to tariffs and geopolitical tensions. That’s drawn the ire of President Donald Trump, who’s been pushing companies to add manufacturing in the US instead. Apple still makes most of its iPhones in China and has no smartphone production in the US — though it’s promised to hire more workers at home and pledged to spend $500 billion (roughly Rs. 43,42,026 crore) domestically over the next four years.
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