Apple to start making iPhones in India this spring

India is a huge market and, although affordable handsets dominate it, Apple is popular enough to consider starting to manufacture iPhones locally. Although we heard about this before, now the Cupertino-based company is close to shipping the first "Made in India" iPhone flagships.

According to The Wall Street Journal, a government official said that Apple would start manufacturing iPhones in India "in the next four-to-six weeks." The same source revealed that the work would be done by Taiwanese contract manufacturer Wistron Corp., the first handsets to be produced being the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6S models, followed by the cheaper iPhone SE. This one is set to enter the assembly lines in around three months.

Apple did not comment anything on this story yet. For now, it looks like local sales of the iPhone 7 lineup are not consistent enough for Apple to start making them locally, but that might change by the end of the year. For now, manufacturing lower cost handsets could be the best choice for Apple to increase its market share in India, although the government refused to grant the tax concessions demanded by the US company.