India still remains to be the most expensive markets to buy a new iPhone, so much so that, even the iPhone SE - Apple's cheapest iPhone ever -- costs a bomb here. Ironically, the iPhone SE was said to be geared exclusively towards emerging markets like India and China on launch. An atrociously high price tag - of Rs 39,000 - however meant it was still far from the reach of a large number of (potential) buyers. All this is going to change in the coming months as Apple starts making the iPhone SE in India.

"Apple Inc will in the coming months start assembling its lower-priced iPhone SE models at a contract manufacturer's plant in Bengaluru," an industry source with direct knowledge of the matter was quoted by Reuters as saying.

Apple's Taiwanese manufacturing partner Wistron Corp is setting up a plant in Bengaluru to focus solely on assembling iPhones even as the Cupertino major seeks tax concessions from the Indian government to set up local production in the world's fastest growing major mobile market. The company will initially start by assembling 300,000 to 400,000 iPhone SE handsets in India and the initial manufacturing of the model will not be dependent on any tax concession offerings from the government.

"It's (still) too early to say what other phone models Apple would assemble at the Bengaluru plant," the report adds.

Apple set itself a target of selling 10 million mobile phones in India by 2016-17. It failed, because in a market like India -- where 70-80 per cent of the devices are sold in the under-Rs 10,000 segment - a new iPhone model (still) usually starts at over Rs 50,000 and that could be a problem.

Starting local assembly will help the company price its products more aggressively, with experts predicting that the price of an iPhone SE could go down by up to 10-12 per cent, should Apple make it in India.

Samsung and a host of Chinese players including Xiaomi and Vivo notably dominate India's smartphone market where the vast majority of phones sold are priced below Rs 15,000. In comparison, the entry level iPhone SE model sells online for as high as Rs 28,433.

The 4-inch iPhone from Apple is everything that the iPhone 6S is (save 3D Touch) only in a 5S-esque body.

Also Read: Apple's iPhone SE is nice but here are 5 phones that are better