India has overtaken China as the leading manufacturing hub for smartphones sold in the US. The latest Canalys report shows that 44% of all US smartphone imports for the April–June period (Q2) were made in India. This is a remarkable rise compared to last year, when India accounted for a mere 13% of all US smartphone imports while China held a reassuring 61% share.
Apple played a major role in India’s rise as the leading smartphone exporter to the US. Cupertino has been stockpiling iPhone inventory to absorb tariff blows following the Trump administration’s “Liberation Day” tariffs.
The move is also part of Apple’s longstanding effort to diversify its iPhone production away from China. A report from October suggested that Apple is even doing early manufacturing work on iPhones in India and Cupertino allegedly plans to switch all US iPhone production to India by next year.
But it’s not just Apple, as Samsung and Motorola have also scaled up their smartphone supplies from India.
Looking at the numbers, Apple was the clear-cut leader on the US smartphone scene with 13.3 million shipments in Q2 and a 49% market share. Samsung came in second place with an estimated 8.3 million shipments a 31% market share while Motorola was third with 3.2 million shipments and a 12% market share.
Google and TCL each shared a 3% market share with quarterly shipments just below 1 million each. A total of 27.1 million smartphones were shipped in the US during the Q2 period which is a slight 1% annual growth. US smartphone demand is expected to remain neutral heading into the second half of the year.