Recently, many media outlets have reported that Apple's iPhone orders are flowing back from India to mainland China.

According to the original plan, Apple intended to shift 20-30% of its production capacity to India within the next 2-3 years. To achieve this, Foxconn invested billions of yuan to set up facilities for assembling iPhones in India.

Last year's iPhone 15 series also began assembly simultaneously in both India and mainland China.

Data shows that Apple currently produces up to 14% of its iPhones in India, accounting for roughly one-seventh of global production, double the previous year's figure. By 2024, this proportion is expected to reach around 20%.

Unexpectedly, plans changed. Instead of expanding production in India for the iPhone 16 series in 2024, Apple chose to relocate production back to mainland China.

Why is this the case? There are two main reasons. Firstly, there are severe quality issues with iPhones assembled in India.

In fact, shortly after the launch of the iPhone 15, numerous media outlets reported that only about 50% of the components for iPhones produced on Indian lines were qualified, a far cry from Apple's usual 'zero-defect' production standard.

Many media outlets have previously reported numerous issues with iPhones produced in India, such as fingerprint marks on the motherboards, dust inside the cameras, and excessive gaps.

Moreover, due to subpar hygiene management and excessive levels of E. coli, the iPhone 15 produced in India faced boycotts from countries like Europe, where consumers refused to buy Indian-assembled units.

Under such circumstances, Cook undoubtedly could not accept this situation and had to consider relocating production back.

Of course, this is just one of the external factors. The more significant factor is that Apple's sales in the Chinese market have fallen out of the top 5, with revenue in Greater China declining by 6.5% year-on-year in the second quarter.

Affected by Apple's move away from the Chinese market, an increasing number of Chinese users are no longer buying iPhones. As the world's largest smartphone market, China has always been one of Apple's significant revenue sources.

If Chinese consumers lose interest in Apple, the losses for the company would be substantial. Therefore, Apple dares not continue to shift production to India, fearing that more and more Chinese people will stop buying iPhones.

Therefore, at this critical juncture before the launch of the iPhone 16, Apple had to relocate production to provide more emotional value to Chinese users and encourage them to continue purchasing the iPhone 16.