Expect cheaper iPhones in India by next month! This is why

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In good news for iPhone lovers, Apple company’s phones assembled in India are likely to hit stores next month.

Apple Inc’s top-end iPhones, assembled in India by Foxconn’s local unit, will potentially help the tech giant drop prices in the world’s second-biggest smartphone market. Some approvals are pending, but the India-made iPhone XR and iPhone XS devices are expected to hit the market by August, a source told the news agency. Expanding local assembly will help Apple save on high taxes levied on the import of fully-built devices, as well as meet local sourcing norms for opening its own retail stores in India.

Rushabh Doshi, a research director at tech consultancy Canalys told Reuters, “Local production will give Apple the leeway to play with the margins of their distributors and indirectly price their phones lower.” Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has tried to position South Asia’s third-biggest economy as a hub for smartphone manufacturing, wooing global players with access to a market with over a billion wireless connections and cheap labour. That push has met with some success as global smartphone giants including Samsung and China’s Oppo have expanded rapidly in India, and contract manufacturers like Foxconn have ramped up domestic operations.