Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Good morning. It’s been a week of binary judgments. Should India buy F-35 or Su-57 fighter jets? Did the US Agency for International Development help the Bharatiya Janata party or the opposition? Does Delhi’s new chief minister, Rekha Gupta, bring with her a fresh energy or a lack of experience? Even the headlines sound like Indian news television’s infamous debates now.From the national to the personal. I was surprised to read this week that among tech-savvy Indians, more income means higher loan repayments. A report on how India spends by PwC and data company Perfios shows the percentage of income spent on loan servicing is largest for high-income earners. But first, India’s mobile phone exports are growing and Apple’s “Make in India” plan couldn’t have come at a better time.Dialling upIndia’s smartphone exports have grown nearly 50 per cent in the first 10 months of this fiscal year, and the mobile phone manufacturers’ industry body this week projected that total exports for the year would be Rs1.8tn ($21bn), up from Rs1.3tn in 2023-24. Apple accounts for a significant contribution to this. Taiwanese supplier Foxconn and India’s Tata Electronics have been manufacturing a growing range of Apple products in India. Even the iPhone 16 Pro, Apple’s most expensive phone, is now made in Tamil Nadu by Foxconn. This is significant for both India and Apple. After the introduction of the government’s performance-linked Make in India subsidy scheme, mobile phone production in India has doubled, according to the India Cellular & Electronics Association. Phones have now surpassed diamonds as the country’s biggest export. And although only around 15 per cent of iPhones are currently made in India, this is expected to increase to 25 per cent by 2027, according to JPMorgan and Bank of America analysts. Globally, the company shipped some 232mn iPhones in 2024.For Apple, this pivot to India is crucial. In the past few years, the company’s dependence on China as a manufacturing location and as a market have created significant challenges. Washington’s growing tensions with Beijing have forced Apple to reduce its overwhelming reliance on Chinese production facilities. And though China remains a top market for its products, the company has been struggling to grow its business there.Manufacturing in India helps Apple become more competitive in selling in the Indian market too, since it can offer its products at lower price points minus the customs and import duties. But for Apple to really lean into India for a “China plus one” strategy, it has to do a lot more. The iPhones currently made in India are still largely assembled using flown-in parts. The company needs a supply base in India that is as robust as the one in China, and component manufacturers will have to be incentivised to set up shop. More importantly, Apple has to do this while trying to figure a way out of the global fatigue of sorts among users of its products. The company has not had a singularly successful cutting-edge new product for several years. Customers are finding fewer reasons to upgrade as each generation of new devices offers only marginal improvement over the previous one. And its biggest software upgrade in recent years, the much-touted integration of artificial intelligence, is limited both in its capability and in reach.In fact, a few hours before I write this, Apple released its latest offering, the iPhone 16e, a pared down, single-camera offering starting at $599, which too is being sold as a great vehicle for Apple Intelligence, a technology that is yet to arrive even on my fully loaded iPhone Pro in India.Recommended storiesTrump doubles down on rift with Ukraine.The world economy needs a leader. Who will it be?Microsoft says it has harnessed a new state of matter to create the basic building blocks of a quantum machine.OpenAI seeks new powers to fend off hostile takeover from Elon Musk.Who wants to be a manager? Not Gen Z.Real men, by which we mean Hollywood stars, wear girly watches.Borrow to buyWhat is going on with India’s elite? They are borrowing more and proportionately investing less compared with people on much lower earnings. High earners use up to 46 per cent of their monthly income on loan repayments, and end up saving only 11 per cent. While servicing debt is a significant chunk of monthly outflow across the board, its percentage share goes up at every level of income increase, starting at 34 per cent for entry-level earners. This is according to a report published by PwC and Perfios, which examined the spending behaviour of 3mn “tech-savvy” consumers who primarily use digital financial platforms. Mid-level professionals constitute the largest chunk of loan holders at 80 per cent. Among the higher-income cohorts, loans are not only linked to home purchases, but also help fuel lifestyle expenses such as shopping and travel. At lower-income brackets, people are borrowing to pay for necessities, but their limited access to bank loans is likely to force them to borrow from the “unorganised” sector.On investing, this trend is reversed. At the lowest bracket with income of around Rs20,000 a month, people invest 23 per cent of their income through mutual funds, direct share purchases etc. Investment share then drops at every level, down to 11 per cent for mid-level professionals and high earners, according to the report.Of the money that remains, lifestyle purchases form the largest chunk of spending at 62 per cent. This includes fashion, electronics, personal care and other products. Online gaming is also a significant outflow, constituting 13 per cent of total spend, which is surprisingly (for me) at par with how much they spend on dining out (or ordering in). This is a significant departure from traditional Indian attitudes towards money, where savings were prioritised and superfluous spending was looked down upon. While these attitudes have been changing since India’s economic liberalisation in 1991, in the past decade and a half, a kind of aggressive consumption has become part of the Indian psyche. It is worrying that a lot of this is being fuelled by debt, especially since India does not have a social security network or a robust pension scheme for the large majority. Personal debt levels will be an important metric to watch to assess which way the real economy is moving.Go figureThe Reserve Bank of India released the data for foreign direct investment in India for the first nine months of this fiscal year, and they do not look great.Read, hear, watchNetflix’s new release Apple Cider Vinegar is a compelling watch. Based on a true story about an Australian influencer, who lied about a cancer diagnosis and amassed a large following, the six-part series is a disturbing peek into the world of alternative treatments and wellness culture. I rarely manage to finish an entire series in a week, but I binged my way through this one in horrified fascination (helped by the fact that I was on a couple of three-hour long flights).There are lots of interesting music events, especially in Mumbai, this weekend. Yo Yo Honey Singh (remember him?) is kicking off his Millionaire India Tour on Saturday and Arijit Singh is playing at Jio World Garden on Sunday. There’s a ton of other things too happening on Sunday, but how do they matter — you’ll all be glued to the India-Pakistan cricket match anyway. Buzzer roundThe leader of which country has promised a whole bunch of cash handouts, including almost $600 for every household, as part of its pre-election budget?Send your answer to [email protected] and check Tuesday’s newsletter to see if you were the first one to get it right.Quick answerOn Tuesday, we asked: What is your current stock market strategy? Here’s how you voted. Thank you for reading. India Business Briefing is edited today by Mure Dickie. Please send feedback, suggestions (and gossip) to [email protected].
