iPhone 17 first-stage manufacturing and testing reportedly underway

Apple continues to increase its reliance on India as a manufacturing hub, with a new report saying that the early manufacturing process for the base iPhone 17 model is being conducted in India.

According to a paywalled report by The Information (via 9to5Mac), for the first time, Apple is using a factory in India for early manufacturing work for an iPhone model.

The first stage of the development process usually takes place between May and October. During this phase, the company figures out how to transform a prototype designed at a Cupertino location into a tangible product that can be produced at scale.

What's interesting about this development is that previously, Apple only trusted China during this phase. The company has been producing iPhones in India for a while now and even started manufacturing Pro models in the country this year.

This is another sign that Apple is eager to reduce its reliance on China due to the thawed relationship of the country with the US.

The increasing dependence on India also shows that Apple now trusts engineers in the country enough to task them with what is one of the most challenging and resource-intensive parts of the product development cycle. This part is known as New Production Introduction or NPI, and involves tweaking design and materials and testing out different types of equipment and production processes to pave the way for mass production.

Apple will continue to do the early manufacturing work for models other than the standard iPhone 17 variants in China. We are guessing that if everything goes smoothly, Apple may decide to do early tests for other models too in India in the coming years.

Separately, a Bloomberg report says that the export of iPhones made in India jumped a third in the six months through September. The company has three suppliers in the country: Foxconn Technology Group, Pegatron Corp, and Tata Electronics.