After iPhone 7, iPhone XR, iPhone SE and iPhone 6S, Apple begins manufacturing one of its latest offerings – the iPhone 11 – locally in the country. Communications, Electronics & Information Technology Minister of India, Ravi Shankar Prasad tweeted about it earlier on Friday.

iPhone 11 is being assembled at  Chennai plant. This is for the first time Apple is manufacturing a top-of-the-line iPhone model in the country.

The local assembly line for iPhone 11 will help Apple avoid a 20 per cent tax that the company is required to pay for importing handsets from its global manufacturing facilities.

Announcing iPhone 11 local manufacturing new Piyush Goyal Minister of Railways and Commerce & Industry said “Significant boost to Make in India! Apple has started manufacturing iPhone 11₹ 63,900 in India, bringing a top-of-the-line model for the first time in the country.”

Prasad tweeted, “2020 – iPhone 11 2019 – iPhone 7 & XR 2018 – iPhone 6S 2017 – iPhone SE This chronology is a statement in itself as to how govt. has developed the mobile phone manufacturing ecosystem in India. It’s only a humble beginning.”

The announcement iPhone 11 local manufacturing comes nearly nine months after Apple began the assembly line for the iPhone XR in India.

Apple started locally manufacturing iPhones in India in May 2017 with the iPhone SE at Wistron’s Bengaluru facility. It was later expanded to Foxconn’s facilities. Last year in October, Apple started manufacturing the iPhone XR locally in India.

Apple has Foxconn, Wistron, and Pegatron as suppliers for its iPhone models.

Reports suggest that Foxconn plans to invest up to $1 billion to expand its India factory where it assembles iPhone models. Another report stated that Pegatron which is the second-largest iPhone assembler after Foxconn in India will make some investment to set up a local subsidiary in India in the future

India has over 50 crore smartphone users right now which makes it one of the most important markets for the country. Various smartphone manufacturers like , Vivo, among others have invested resources in the country to meet the growing demand of the consumers