“Apple is coming to India, only to manufacture new products, as part of the electronic manufacturing programmes,” Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said clearing the air on the issues of refurbished Apple smartphones coming to India.

Prasad told BusinessLine that recently senior officials of Foxconn have met him and they have shared that Apple has plans to make only new products from India.

The Minister said there has been lot of issues on the reports of Apple going to sell refurbished smartphones in India and therefore, he wanted to clear things, on the subject.

“Dr Louis Woo, Head (Channel Business Group) Foxccon, had met me recently and I have requested him to consider exploring manufacturing in India and the company will be given all help. Woo showed keen interest and assured of positively exploring India while acknowledging the great potential of the Indian market. He never made any mention of having a second hand facility of Apple phones in India,” he said.

Prasad said that he emphasised upon Woo to have a manufacturing base here as well for Apple’s new and existing products, as the company already has a significant market share in India.

“I also conveyed to him that in our government-sponsored programmes, we are also creating a lot of PHDs in electronics from various universities (around 4,000 PHDs) and the whole Modified Special Incentive Package Scheme (M-SIPS) for such projects (manufacturing),” he said.

Digital India He said Apple is most welcome to come to India. “With Digital India expanding, the market is going to grow further. I am happy to note that all the major players (handset makers) of the world are in India in a big way and my initiative of making India as a hub of electronics manufacturing has struck a favourable note all over the world,” Prasad added.

Dumping of e-wastes According to industry experts also, reselling of old smartphones in India could also make the country a ‘dumping ground’ of e-wastes, which is a serious issue and the Centre should not allow such ‘hazardous to lives’ proposals.

Prasad had confirmed Apple's request to sell pre-owned iPhones imported from China in India, in a statement in Parliament in March, but there was no official statement on the response to Apple on it.

Meanwhile, according to Apple Chief Executive Officer, Tim Cook, while sales for Apple in China (second largest after the US) have fallen by 11 per cent in the last quarter, but in India its sales were up 56 per cent from a year-ago period.

He had recently said India will be the most populous country in the world in 2022 and it’s a very young country and the people here ‘really want smartphones’.

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