India Weighs Plum Incentives To Lure Apple, Dell, HP As China's COVID-19 Lockdowns Weigh

• India wants to boost the production of tablets and laptops to cut imports and make the country an export hub in the longer term.

• The federal technology ministry explored payments that could exceed half a billion dollars per company, Bloomberg reports.

• India plans to boost the financial incentives for tablet and laptop manufacturers, wooing companies like Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL), Dell Technologies Inc (NYSE: DELL), and HP Inc (NYSE: HPQ) to widen or begin local production.

• Notably, India wants to court Apple, which already assembles iPhones in India via its Taiwanese suppliers, to make iPads locally.

• India weighed offering up to INR 45 billion ($549 million) per manufacturer.

• To qualify, foreign companies must invest INR 7 billion in India over five years in addition to the outlays they have made through March 2021.

• The incentives could go as high as the equivalent of about 6% of the sales of finished products.

• Apple began making its new iPhone 14 in India sooner than anticipated cutting the lag between Chinese and Indian output.

• Chinese consumers bought fewer iPhone 14 handsets in the early days of its availability than the product's predecessor a year ago, marking a rare double-digit decline.

• Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Google urged Indian manufacturers to submit bids to assemble up to 1 million units of its Pixel smartphones since China's strict COVID-19 lockdown caused massive production delays.

• Vedanta Ltd and critical Apple supplier Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd (OTC: HNHAF), operating as Foxconn, shared plans to invest $19.5 billion to set up semiconductor plants in India.

• Price Action: AAPL shares traded lower by 2.59% at $145.96 in the premarket on the last check Thursday.

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