14/06/2025

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BIZ & FINANCE SATURDAY | JUNE 14, 2025

Air India crash rocks Boeing leadership

Foxconn ships 97% of India iPhones to US amid tariff pressure NEW DELHI: Nearly all the iPhones exported by Foxconn from India went to the US between March and May, customs data showed, far above the 2024 average of 50% and a clear sign of Apple’s efforts to bypass high US tariffs imposed on China. The numbers, being reported by Reuters for the first time, show Apple has realigned its India exports to almost exclusively serve the US market, when previously the devices were more widely distributed to countries including the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Britain. During March-May, Foxconn exported iPhones worth US$3.2 billion (RM13.5 billion) from India, with an average 97% shipped to the US, compared to a 2024 average of 50.3%, according to commercially available customs data seen by Reuters. India iPhone shipments by Foxconn to the US in May 2025 were worth nearly US$1 billion, the second-highest ever after the record US$1.3 billion worth of devices shipped in March, the data showed. Apple declined to comment, while Foxconn did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said China will face 55% tariffs after the two countries agreed on a plan, subject to both leaders’ approval, to ease levies that had reached triple digits. India is subject, like most US trading partners, to a baseline 10% tariff and is trying to negotiate an agreement to avert a 26% “reciprocal” levy that Trump announced and then paused in April. Apple’s increased production in India drew a strong rebuke from Trump in May. “We are not interested in you building in India, India can take care of themselves, they are doing very well, we want you to build here,“ Trump recalled telling CEO Tim Cook. In the first five months of this year, Foxconn has already sent iPhones worth US$4.4 billion to the US from India, compared to US$3.7 billion in the whole of 2024. Apple has been taking steps to speed up production from India to bypass tariffs, which would make phones shipped from China to the US much more expensive. In March, it chartered planes to transport iPhone 13, 14, 16 and 16e models worth roughly US$2 billion to the US. Apple has also lobbied Indian airport authorities to cut the time needed to clear customs at Chennai airport in the southern state of Tamil Nadu from 30 hours to six hours, Reuters has reported. The airport is a key hub for iPhone exports. Apple has historically sold more than 60 million iPhones in the US each year, with roughly 80% made in China. – Reuters

Boeing was deemed responsible for three high-profile accidents involving 737 MAX narrow-body planes in recent years, including two fatal crashes. A January 2024 incident, when a door plug blew off a new plane mid flight, damaged its reputation and led to the departure of then-CEO Dave Calhoun, as well as head of commercial planes and its board chair. The Air India plane that crashed in the city of Ahmedabad was more than a decade old. It first flew in late 2013 and was delivered to Air India in January 2014. Since then, it accumulated more than 41,000 flight hours, including 420 hours during 58 flights in May and 165 hours during 21 flights in June, according to Cirium, an aviation data analytics firm, and FlightRadar24, a flight tracking website. Before the crash, airline executives had voiced greater confidence in Boeing’s rebound in deliveries and in Ortberg’s leadership after years of reputational damage for the planemaker. The public has not yet caught on, however. Last month, the Axios Harris poll of 100 recognizable corporate brands by reputation put Boeing at 88th, same as in 2024. The wide-body 787 planes have had a strong safety record. They were grounded in 2013 due to battery issues, but no one was reported injured.

killing nearly all of the 242 people on board, in the world’s worst aviation disaster in a decade. Air safety experts have said that at this time there is no reason to think a manufacturing or design problem was the cause, but the reason for the air disaster is not clear. “Safety is foundational to our industry and is at the core of everything that we do,” Ortberg told employees. “Our technical experts are prepared to assist investigators to understand the circumstances, and a Boeing team stands ready to travel to India.” The biggest challenge for Boeing could be getting lay people to understand that while a jet it made crashed, it is unlikely that Boeing is at fault, said John Nance, an aviation safety expert and former commercial pilot. Of course, accident investigators will consider every possibility, he added. With public perception of the planemaker still on shaky ground, that will fall to Boeing executives to address. Ortberg has been trying to move the company past a series of regulatory and safety crises, and was heading into the Paris Air Show after a busy month that included more than 300 new orders and a ramp-up in 737 production. “Previous production issues at Boeing will be very much on people’s minds at the moment and the relatively new leadership at Boeing needs to be visible in the days to come,“ said Paul Charles, CEO of the PC Agency, a London-based luxury travel consultancy. Boeing shares closed 4.8% lower on Thursday. frameworks and business arrangements that will enable Indonesian power to be delivered to Singapore. Indonesia expects to export 3.4 gigawatts of low-carbon power by 2035, according to a presentation slide shown by Indonesia’s energy minister Bahlil Lahadalia. In another MoU, the two countries said they would look into drawing up a legally-binding agreement for carbon capture and storage that would allow cross-border projects to go ahead. If successful, it will be the first such project in Asia, said Singapore government minister Tan

SEATTLE: Boeing leadership was back in crisis mode on Thursday following the deadly crash of an Air India 787-8 Dreamliner jet minutes after take-off earlier in the day. The planemaker’s new CEO Kelly Ortberg had been set to head to the Paris Air Show, the industry’s biggest event of the year, after several key accomplishments in recent weeks as he tries to rebuild public trust in Boeing following a series of safety and production crises. But his plan to attend the show next week with Boeing Commercial Airplanes head Stephanie Pope has been scrapped, Ortberg said, as the company focuses on the investigation into the first-ever crash of a 787 jet, its most advanced model. “As our industry prepares to start the Paris Air Show, Stephanie (Pope) and I have both canceled plans to attend so we can be with our team, and focus on our customer and the investigation,” Ortberg wrote in a message to employees on Thursday evening that was seen by Reuters. The Air India plane bound for London crashed in the Indian city of Ahmedabad, o Incident marks first fatal 787 disaster, planemaker’s CEO cancels Paris trip to oversee probe JAKARTA: Indonesia and Singapore signed initial deals yesterday to develop cross-border trade in low carbon electricity and collaborate on carbon capture and storage, ministers from both countries said in Jakarta. The electricity deal reaffirmed an earlier agreement to export solar power from Indonesia to Singapore, with a group of companies companies planning to build plants and grid infrastructure to generate and transmit the power. The MoU signed by the two countries says they will aim to draw up policies, regulatory

Boeing’s narrowbody 737 MAX jets were grounded for years following two fatal crashes and have faced years of scrutiny and production delays. – Reuters Indonesia, Singapore ink power and carbon deals

See Leng. Energy firms BP, ExxonMobil, and Indonesia’s state company Pertamina are already developing CCS projects in Indonesia. With its depleted oil and gas reservoirs and saline aquifers capable of storing hundreds of gigatonnes of CO2, Indonesia has allowed CCS operators to set aside 30% of their storage capacity for carbon captured in other countries. The two countries also signed a deal for the development of sustainable industrial zones on several Indonesian islands near Singapore, including Batam, Bintan and Karimun. – Reuters

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