The last couple months there has been a lot of buzz about Apple soon starting to manufacture the iPhone SE in India so as to make it more affordable for the Indian consumer.

However, for Apple, local assembly/manufacturing of the iPhone SE is just the starting point for the company's plans in India based on a report in the Economictimes.

According to Indian IT secretary Aruna Sundararajan, "Apple plans to move up the value chain in their next phase, in terms of producing the entire suite of products, definitely all iPhone models, for which their entire ecosystem of partners needs to move in."  

"They (Apple) have two primary asks (demands)—one that they should be able to import the components that they need, and second that it should be cheaper for them to manufacture here than to import," she said to ET.  

"The second question is where government has not yet taken a view, because this is to be decided only after the GST (goods and services tax) is finalised."

Source: Forbes