(Credit: Prashanth Vishwanathan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
If you buy a new smartphone in the US, don’t assume it was made in China. Companies are increasingly sourcing handsets from factories in India to avoid Trump's tariffs on Chinese goods.
Research firm Canalys estimates that 74% of US smartphone shipments came from India and Vietnam in Q2 2025. That’s a reversal from a year ago, when Chinese-made smartphones made up 61% of the shipments to the US.
Canalys now says Chinese-made handsets saw their share shrink to 25% in Q2 as phone manufacturers, including Apple, sourced more products from India and Vietnam. This marks the first time India has been the leading manufacturer of US phones during a quarterly period.
(Credit: Canalys)"The total volume of ‘Made-in-India' smartphones grew 240% year on year and now accounts for 44% of smartphones imported into the US, up from only 13% of smartphone shipments in Q2 2024,” Canalys added.
The tech industry has been sourcing more from India and Vietnam after Trump threatened to impose tariffs as high as 125% on Chinese goods back in April. Although the White House later exempted phones and other electronics from the tariffs, the uncertainty around Trump’s trade war caused many manufacturers to source more US-bound shipments from India and Vietnam.
Phone manufacturers haven’t been able to ditch China entirely, though. For example, Apple is still reliant on its Chinese contract factories to help it produce Pro models for the iPhone 16 at scale, Canalys analyst Sanyam Chaurasia said.
“Samsung and Motorola have also increased their share of US-targeted supply from India, although their shifts are significantly slower and smaller in scale than Apple’s,” Chaurasia added. “Motorola, similar to Apple, has its core manufacturing hub in China, whereas Samsung relies mainly upon producing its smartphones in Vietnam.”
Vendors have been trying to “frontload” their shipments, bringing in more inventory early on in the year to avoid facing the hefty import tariffs. However, the US smartphone market only grew 1% during Q2, an indicator of “tepid demand in an increasingly pressured economic environment,” Canalys says.
“Even if smartphones remain exempted from tariffs, many other categories are impacted, which might greatly impact consumers’ spending patterns and keep smartphone demand modest" in the second half of 2025, the research firm added.
The industry's response to the tariffs might also be tumultuous. Vietnam has since agreed to a trade deal with the US that calls for tariffing Vietnamese imports at 20%, although it's unclear when this will take effect. Meanwhile, Indian imports could face a tariff rate of 26% by this Friday if an agreement isn’t reached.