Apple Have Airlified 600 Tons of iPhones from India to Beat Tarifs of Trump

American President Donald Trump has imposed heavy tariffs on imports from many countries. To avoid this tariff, American devices maker Apple has sent about 1.5 million iPhones to the US from chartered cargo flights. The weight of these iPhones is 600 tonnes. America is among the big markets for Apple.

Market analysts say that there may be a large number of Apple devices manufacturing in China, prices of iPhones may increase in the US. The US has imposed the highest tariff of 125 percent on China. This tariff on India is 26 percent. However, this week Trump had stopped the tariff on many countries for three months, but it is not included China. Reuters report quoted sources who are aware of Apple’s plan as saying that the company is trying to avoid this tariff.

A source said that in India, Apple lobbied with Airport Authorities to lose the clearance for customs at Chennai Airport in Tamil Nadu to reduce the clearance from 30 hours to six hours. The company also uses this type of arrangement at some airports in China. In India, the export of smartphones in the last financial year has increased to about two lakh crore rupees. This is an increase of about 54 percent on a year-on-year basis. Smartphone companies including Apple and Samsung have increased their manufacturing and exports in the country to take advantage of the Central Government’s production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme.

Recently, Electronics and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had reported that the iPhone’s share in smartphones exports is about Rs 1.5 lakh crore. He said that guidelines will be released in the next few weeks for the government’s electronics components scheme of Rs 22,919 crore. The manufacturing of iPhone has increased rapidly in the last few years in the country. Apple’s contract manufacturer FoxConn had assembled about 1.2 million iPhones in the country last year. This year, Foxconn plans to assemble about three million units of iPhone.