iPhone Helps India Overtake China as the Leading Manufacturer for U.S. Smartphones

India has overtaken China as the leading manufacturer of smartphones shipped to the United States, a change largely driven by Apple, according to Canalys.

iPhone 16 Pro Colors
New data from Canalys shows that iPhone shipments to the United States fell 11% year-over-year in the second quarter of 2025, as the company accelerated a major supply chain shift to India amid persistent trade tensions with China; Apple shipped 13.3 million iPhones to the U.S. between April and June, down from 14.9 million units in the same period last year.

The decline follows a strong first quarter in which Apple saw a 25% year-over-year shipment increase, partly attributed to early consumer purchases ahead of anticipated tariffs. Canalys attributes the second-quarter decline to a combination of frontloaded demand, rising economic pressure on consumers, and increased competition in the low- and mid-range segments of the market.

Despite the drop in shipments, Apple remained the leading smartphone vendor in the U.S. in the second quarter of 2025, holding a 49% market share. This still represents a 7% decline from the 56% share recorded in the second quarter of 2024. Meanwhile, Samsung obtained 38% year-over-year growth, reaching 8.3 million units shipped and expanding its market share from 23% to 31%.

The share of U.S. smartphone shipments assembled in China dropped from 61% in the second quarter of 2024 to 25% in the second quarter of 2025. India now accounts for 44% of U.S. smartphone imports, up from just 13% a year ago. This marks the first time India has overtaken China as the leading manufacturing hub for smartphones shipped to the United States.

India became the leading manufacturing hub for smartphones sold in the U.S. for the very first time in Q2 2025, largely driven by Apple's accelerated supply chain shift to India amid an uncertain trade landscape between the U.S. and China. Apple has scaled up its production capacity in India over the last several years as a part of its 'China Plus One' strategy and has opted to dedicate most of its export capacity in India to supply the U.S. market so far in 2025.

Apple began assembling iPhone 16 Pro models in India during the quarter, marking a significant expansion of the company's operations in the country. Nevertheless, the company continues to rely on manufacturing facilities in China to meet the full scale of U.S. demand for Pro models.

The shift is part of Apple's broader effort to mitigate risk from U.S.-China trade tensions and reduce dependence on a single country for production. Apple also continued to frontload inventories in the second quarter to prepare for potential tariffs later in 2025.

Apple built up its inventories rapidly toward the end of Q1 and sought to maintain this level in Q2. Yet, the market only grew 1% despite vendors frontloading inventory, indicating tepid demand in an increasingly pressured economic environment and a widening gap between sell-in and sell-through.

The 1% overall market growth in U.S. smartphone shipments in the second quarter suggests that consumer appetite for new smartphones remains subdued. Apple is expected to report earnings on July 31.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Tags: Canalys, India

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Top Rated Comments

Lounge vibes 05 Avatar
12 weeks ago

Apple is going to continue to see a fall in sales as one bone head design decision after another starts to take it's toll. I have used Apple products for almost 20 years now, and I must say that my next phone is probably going to be an android. Haven't been impressed with their laptops either over the past 20 years. The last good laptop Apple made was the 2012 macbook pro. It has been all downhill since Steve Jobs died.

So yeah, if a 20 year fanboy is ready to stop buying Apple, I would say their best years are behind them.
accidentally stumble into the wrong thread there?
think you meant to enter one of the 50,000 “Apple is Doomed” threads just created within the last two weeks and missclicked…
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Adam Warlock Avatar
12 weeks ago

So what are you doing here?

Anyway, US will get expensive and worse quality iPhones. The rest of the world will get them cheaper and higher quality (China made).
I don't understand. Where did the Chinese get this magical ability to assemble electronic components better than anyone else? I hope you don't believe the nonsense Tim Cook tried to push a while back claiming that only China has the skillset to put these bits of glass, metal, silicon and plastic together. The Chinese are not born with this knowledge; it was taught to them, and can thus be likewise taught to anyone else, including workers in Western nations. Costs is another issue entirely, but to claim that quality is best from China is rubbish.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
neuropsychguy Avatar
12 weeks ago

Apple is going to continue to see a fall in sales as one bone head design decision after another starts to take it's toll. I have used Apple products for almost 20 years now, and I must say that my next phone is probably going to be an android. Haven't been impressed with their laptops either over the past 20 years. The last good laptop Apple made was the 2012 macbook pro. It has been all downhill since Steve Jobs died.

So yeah, if a 20 year fanboy is ready to stop buying Apple, I would say their best years are behind them.
Multiple things don't add up with your comment. You are a "20 year Apple fanboy" who hasn't been impressed with Apple's phones or laptops "over the past 20 years" but you also liked the 2012 MacBook Pro (2012 was only 13 years ago). You're not a "fanboy" if you aren't impressed with Apple products. You might use them, but that's not the same as being a "fanboy".

"It has been all downhill since Steve Jobs died."

He died in 2011 but you thought the 2012 MacBook Pro was good. That's not "downhill" from his death even acknowledging the 2012 MBP was similar to the 2011 one. Also, if you haven't tried Apple Silicon laptops, you're missing out. Absolutely phenomenal computers.

I'll say as someone who has been mainly but not exclusively using Apple products for more than 40 years -- they are better now than they've ever been.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
GUNSTAR1 Avatar
12 weeks ago
I think India is in a far better position to become chinas replacement for manufacturing. China has been getting away with IP theft for too long for one thing and i think thats pushing more companies to get away from them. Apple would be smart to do so.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
senttoschool Avatar
12 weeks ago

Apple is going to continue to see a fall in sales as one bone head design decision after another starts to take it's toll. I have used Apple products for almost 20 years now, and I must say that my next phone is probably going to be an android. Haven't been impressed with their laptops either over the past 20 years. The last good laptop Apple made was the 2012 macbook pro. It has been all downhill since Steve Jobs died.

So yeah, if a 20 year fanboy is ready to stop buying Apple, I would say their best years are behind them.
So what are you doing here?

Anyway, US will get expensive and worse quality iPhones. The rest of the world will get them cheaper and higher quality (China made).
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Adam Warlock Avatar
12 weeks ago

When was the last time India made anything of quality?

Sure, Indians can be trained but there will be a ton of growing pains.
I don't know. My point is that the Chinese are not the only ones that can assemble phones. This knowledge can and should be spread out, particularly to Western nations.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)