5 places where companies are moving their supply chain outside of China

India is trying to unseat China in high-end manufacturing, with iPhone maker Apple and chipmakers eyeing its vast land mass and young population.

With its vast land and large young population, India is a natural alternative to China, the global factory.

In particular, India’s population is expected to surpass China’s and become the world’s most populous country by 2023, according to a report released by the United Nations Economic and Social Affairs Department in July.

Tech giant Apple is moving some of its iPhone production to the Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka and is also moving its iPad manufacturing to the South Asian country. JP Morgan analysts said Apple’s They expect to move 5% of the iPhone 14 to India by the end of 2022, they wrote in a September note. They estimate that by 2025, one in four iPhones will be manufactured in India.

India has a large labor pool, a long history of manufacturing, and government support to boost industry and exports. As a result, many are exploring whether Indian manufacturing is a good alternative to China, Julie Gerdeman, CEO of Supply Chain Risk Management Platform, told Insider.

However, the step is easier said than done.

Indian Prime Minister Modi Since they started working in 2014, they have been working on attracting foreign direct investment, and last fiscal year, foreign investment reached a record of 83.6 billion dollars, according to government data.

But there are still significant hurdles – even as the Indian government ramps up its appetite for foreign investment, it’s still harder to do business in the country than in China, partly because of bureaucracy, red tape and multi-stakeholder decision-making.