By Li Panpan

More than a dozen of Apple’s Chinese suppliers are receiving initial clearance by the Indian government departments to expand in the country, helping Apple diversify its assembly network beyond China, reported Bloomberg recently.

AirPods and iPhone assembler Luxshare Precision (立讯精密) and a unit of lensmaker Sunny Optical Technology (舜宇光学) are among the companies gaining approval, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named because the permits aren’t public.

The clearances from key Indian ministries are a step toward full approval for expansion in India, and the companies will still likely be required to find local Indian joint venture partners, reported Bloomberg.

About 14 suppliers are receiving the green light from India after Apple named them as companies whose services it needs to increase its presence in India, the people said. While the vast majority of Apple products are still assembled in China, in recent years, the company has started making more of them in India through Taiwanese partners.

It was reported that, affected by changes in Foxconn’s Zhengzhou factory, Apple has accelerated its plan to move some production out of the Chinese mainland, requiring suppliers to more actively plan to move assembly to countries such as India and Vietnam and seek to reduce dependence on Foxconn and other assembly plants from the Taiwan region. Analysts say India and Vietnam are expected to be Apple's next manufacturing hubs.

Since the dispute with China in the bordering area in 2020, India has banned apps of Alibaba, Tencent, and ByteDance, and raided, probed, and penalized a raft of other Chinese tech companies from phone makers to fintech service providers. It has tightened rules that forbid companies from bordering countries from entering without government consent, said the Bloomberg report.