India eliminated tariffs on wireless charging hardware, lithium-ion battery cells, and specialty screens on July 9, clearing a significant cost obstacle for Apple’s assembly partners in the country. The exemptions, valid through March 31, 2029, directly target the components that made iPhone manufacturing in India economically marginal compared to China, reshaping the economics of Apple’s India expansion.
The tariff cuts remove 7.5% duties on wireless charging inputs and 5% levies on battery cells and automotive and medical device screens, as reported by Reuters. For Apple, the wireless charging exemption matters most immediately: that hardware feeds directly into the MagSafe system used across the iPhone lineup. With import tariffs now gone, Foxconn and Tata Electronics, Apple’s two primary India-based assemblers, can source and produce charging components domestically at costs that finally compete with Chinese manufacturing.
Apple’s assembly partners in India are already scaling aggressively as the company assembled $22 billion worth of iPhones in India during the 12 months ending in March 2025, a 60% year-over-year jump. The partners now build roughly a quarter of all iPhones globally and are producing the entire iPhone 17 lineup in India for the first time, including the Pro and Pro Max models. Foxconn invested $1.5 billion in India expansion earlier this year, while Tata Electronics has grown into an equally central manufacturing partner.
The tariff exemptions arrive as Apple pursues an aggressive target: manufacturing the majority of iPhones sold in the United States in India by the end of 2026. That goal, announced earlier but economically tenuous under the old tariff regime, now looks materially more achievable. The cost gap between India and China just narrowed significantly on three critical inputs, and it stays narrow until 2029.
The exemptions are part of a push to boost local electronics manufacturing to $500 billion over the next four years. As a Grant Thornton Bharat partner noted, the move should “boost cost competitiveness, domestic value addition and localisation of high-value smartphone and electronics manufacturing,” while the battery cell exemption may spur domestic investment in battery production for both phones and electric vehicles.
For Apple, the tariff relief makes the India expansion more profitable and accelerates the timeline for shifting iPhone production away from China, a hedge against both US trade friction and supply chain concentration risk. But the exemptions expire in 2029, which means Apple and its partners have a three-year window to lock in cost advantages and build sufficient scale that domestic component sourcing becomes sticky, not just cheaper. Whether India can move from tariff-subsidized assembly to genuinely competitive manufacturing before the exemptions vanish is the real test.
