Apple plans to shift the assembly line of all US-sold iPhones to India as early as next year, according to people familiar with the matter. This move comes as President Donald Trump’s tariff war forces the tech giant to pivot away from China, the British financial daily Financial Times has reported.

According to a report published in the Financial Times, “The push builds on Apple’s strategy to diversify its supply chain but goes further and faster than investors appreciate, with a goal to source from India the entirety of the more than 60 million iPhones sold annually in the United States by the end of 2026”.

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The target would mean doubling the iPhone output in India, after almost two decades in which Apple spent heavily in China to create a world-beating production line which powered its rise into a US $3-trillion tech giant.

China, where Apple manufactures the majority of its iPhones through third-party contract manufacturing companies like Foxconn, has been subject to the US president’s most aggressive tariffs, though he has since signalled a willingness to negotiate with Beijing.

In the wake of Trump’s tariff announcements, which wiped US $700 billion from Apple’s market value, the company rushed to export available Indian-manufactured iPhones to the US to avoid the higher tariffs imposed on China.

In recent years, Apple has been steadily building capacity in India with contract manufacturers like Tata Electronics and Foxconn, though it still assembles most of its smartphones in China.

iPhone assembly is the last step of the production process, bringing together hundreds of components for which Apple is still heavily reliant on its Chinese suppliers.

Trump initially announced “reciprocal” tariffs of more than 100 per cent on imports from China, but then offered a temporary reprieve for smartphones. The devices are still subject to a separate 20% rate, which applies to all imports from China.

India was hit with a so-called reciprocal tariff of 26%, though this has been paused even as New Delhi pushed for a bilateral trade agreement with the US. On a visit to India this week, US Vice President JD Vance said that the two countries were making “very good progress”.

The US accounted for about 28% of Apple’s 232.1 million global iPhone shipments in 2024, according to the International Data Corporation. Apple would need to further increase capacity in India to fulfil all US orders from the country.

Last year, as the iPhone maker sought to increase output from India, Foxconn and Tata began importing pre-assembled component sets from China.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has been in regular contact with Trump and his administration since attending the president’s inauguration in January 2025.

However, official spokespersons for Apple in India, as well as Tata Electronics and Foxconn, did not comment on the Financial Times report.

Significantly, Apple’s main Indian suppliers, Foxconn and Tata Electronics, had shipped almost US $2 billion worth of handsets to their largest market in March this year, as Apple sought to offset the impact of looming tariffs.

Apple had chartered cargo flights recently to ferry 600 tonnes of iPhones–or as many as 1.5 million devices–to the US in March this year, in order to ensure sufficient inventory in the important US market. Apple has three plants in India, and last month the company temporarily extended its operations by making Sunday a working day, at Foxconn India’s biggest factory in Chennai.