Tata gains ground in Apple’s supply chain as India-made iPhone exports climb in 2025

Apple’s aggressive shift to India has also drawn political attention.

Tata Electronics has rapidly emerged as Apple’s fastest-growing supplier in 2025, playing a key role in driving India’s booming iPhone exports even as U.S.-China tariff tensions escalate.

Between January and May 2025, Apple exported 20.4 million iPhones, marking a 57% year-on-year increase, with 77% of these shipments headed to the U.S., according to data provided by Canalys.

Tata shipped 7.5 million iPhones during the first five months, accounting for 37% of India’s iPhone exports — a sharp rise from just 13% last year. This rapid scale-up has been driven by Tata’s swift acquisition and integration of Wistron’s assembly facility, its aggressive expansion of electronics manufacturing at Hosur, and its growing control over India’s domestic component ecosystem, enabling faster production cycles and reduced import dependency.

While Foxconn remains Apple’s largest manufacturing partner in India with a 52% share, Tata’s accelerating growth signals a significant shift in Apple’s India strategy, positioning the conglomerate as a core pillar of Apple’s global supply chain, Canalys analyst Sanyam Chaurasia said.

In May, 89% of all iPhones made in India were shipped to the U.S., up sharply from 58% a year earlier — a clear reflection of Apple’s strategy to bypass steep U.S. tariffs on Chinese-made products. The U.S. share of India’s iPhone exports stood at 80% in April and 87% in March, according to Canalys. This marks a sharp realignment of Apple’s India manufacturing, which previously supplied a more diversified set of markets across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
Apple is aggressively expanding its India manufacturing footprint as it works to reduce reliance on China amid rising geopolitical and tariff risks.

The company aims to manufacture most of the iPhones it sells in the United States at factories in India by the end of 2026. Production has already been ramping up sharply — in March alone, Apple shipped about 600 tons of iPhones worth $2 billion to the U.S., followed by an aggressive scale-up for the upcoming iPhone 17 Pro models scheduled for launch in September.

Apple’s suppliers are expanding capacity in lockstep. Foxconn’s subsidiary, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., has begun producing AirPods at its Hyderabad facility for export, while its large new iPhone plant in Bengaluru is nearing completion and expected to play a key role in future iPhone exports. Meanwhile, Tata Electronics’ new iPhone facility in Hosur has started assembling models including the iPhone 16 and 16e, and is also doubling enclosure production for Apple’s devices at the same site.

In the first five months of this year alone, Foxconn has already shipped iPhones worth $4.4 billion to the U.S. from India, surpassing the $3.7 billion it exported in all of 2024. Apple’s aggressive shift to India has also drawn political attention. In May, former U.S. President Donald Trump publicly rebuked Apple’s offshore expansion, recalling his conversation with CEO Tim Cook: “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.”