Tim Cook meets Chandrasekhar, discusses manufacturing, exports and R&D

Minister of State in Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar on April 19 met Apple CEO Tim Cook and discussed various topics including exports, job creation and ‘broadening manufacturing’.

In a tweet, Chandrasekhar said, “It was a delight to meet @tim_cook CEO, @Apple and his team to engage on Apple’s strategic and long-term partnership with and in India’s digital journey.”

“We discussed deepening and broadening manufacturing, exports, skilling of youth, expanding app n innovation economy and job creation,” the tweet added.

The minister also spoke about the government’s goal of deepening the country’s electronics ecosystem and invited Cook to grow apps and take up research and development in the country.

Earlier in the day, Cook met Prime Minister Narendra Modi wherein he said that the company is committed to “growing and investing” across the country.

Apple clocked iPhone exports of about $5 billion-$5.5 billion from India in FY23, accounting for nearly half of the country’s mobile phone exports, according to estimates from industry sources.

The Cupertino tech giant captured 25 percent of ‘Made in India’ smartphone shipments in terms of value in 2022, as compared to 12 percent in 2021, as per Counterpoint Research. The company’s ‘Made in India’ shipments grew by 65 percent year-on-year (YoY) by volume and 162 percent YoY by value in 2022, it said.

Apple’s partners Foxconn and Wistron were the fastest growing manufacturers among the top 10 in Q4 2022, fuelled by increasing exports from Apple, the report added. Apple’s work with Indian suppliers of all sizes supports hundreds of thousands of jobs across the country, the company stated on April 18. Moneycontrol