After opening a manufacturing facility in India to produce low cost iPhone SE for Indian customers, Apple is now reportedly making iPhone 6s devices in India and plans to produce another model there, as well. The third model is unidentified, but it is likely to be the iPhone 6s Plus.
India taxes imported devices significantly, increasing up their prices so companies started to manufacture products inside the country. Local manufacturing is expected to help Apple make its low to midrange devices price competitive with rivals such as Samsung, which already produces phones in India.
Moving iPhones production to India will insulate models against rapidly rising tariffs. Apple fell behind both Samsung and OnePlus in the first quarter of this year within Indias smartphone market, after taxes forced price increases on the iPhone 8 series and iPhone X.
The made-in-India iPhone 6s will be only sold in India like iPhone SE since it will take time to scale up production capacity. In fact, Apple will continue with the import of iPhone 6s until production capacity improves. Hence, there will be no price correction for the locally manufactured units in the beginning but eventually rates will drop down.
The phone is likely to hit the local Indian stores soon with a significantly lower price tag.