Apple, in a letter to the federal government in November, outlined manufacturing plans and asked for financial incentives. Apple, in a letter to the federal government in November, outlined manufacturing plans and asked for financial incentives.

Apple is in talks with India’s government to explore making products locally, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, as the US firm aims to make deeper inroads in the world’s second-largest mobile phone market by users. The report quotes senior government officials with knowledge of the matter.

According to the Wall Street Journal report, one of the senior officials said, “Apple wants to emulate its China model in India,” and is seeking financial incentives. It adds that the government is looking into the proposals. The report does not mention which products Apple is looking into manufacturing in India.

The Journal said Apple, in a letter to the federal government in November, outlined manufacturing plans and asked for financial incentives.

Interestingly if one goes according to the latest reports, Apple is also considering about manufacturing in US. A recent report said Apple asked Foxconn to prepare a plan on how cost effective it would be to move manufacturing to the US. President-elect Donald Trump had promised his voters in the election that he would get Apple to build their computers in the US. Apple has not yet commented on any of these reports.

In India too, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is trying to boost technology manufacturing in the country through his ‘Make in India’ initiative. His government in June exempted foreign retailers for three years from a requirement to locally source 30 percent of goods sold in their stores.

Government representatives were not available to comment, while an Apple spokesman in India did not immediately respond to an email from Reuters seeking comment.

Local manufacturing would help Apple open retail stores in the country where its iPhones account for less than 2 percent of Indian smartphones sales. Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd (Foxconn), which makes Apple devices such as iPhones and iPads, has a manufacturing facility in southern India, but Apple’s products are wholly manufactured in China.

Currently, Apple does not have a wholly-owned store in India and sells its products through distributors such as Redington and Ingram Micro. The Cupertino-giant manufactures in six countries including Korea, Japan and the US. In May, the Finance Ministry had rejected relaxing the 30 per cent domestic sourcing norms. Apple sought for relaxation as a pre-condition for bringing in FDI to set up single-brand retail stores in the country.

With inputs from Reuters

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