Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Mar 3: Apple, the United States tech giant, will manufacture iPhones in a new 300-acre factory in Karnataka as it seeks to ramp up its India production and diversify away from China, the Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar and the Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai announced on Friday.
The manufacturing unit will provide employment to one lakh people, they said.
The flagship mobile’s global supply chain is based mainly in China, where strict Covid policies last year and ongoing diplomatic tensions with the US have hurt production. “Apple phones to be built in the state soon,” Bommai tweeted on Friday.
Foxconn, the leading manufacturer of iPhones, has been provided land on the outskirts of Bengaluru. The 300-acre campus is said to be one of the largest manufacturing units for Apple phones. The Taiwanese company, also known for its flagship unit Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., is planning to invest 700 million dollars in the new plant to ramp up local production.
Bommai said the investment would create a “whole lot of opportunities for Karnataka.”
The factory may also assemble Apple’s handsets, media reports said. Foxconn may also use the site to produce some parts for its nascent electric vehicle business, the report added.
The announcement came as Foxconn chairman Young Liu visited Bengaluru on Friday following a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this week. “Our discussions covered various topics aimed at enhancing India’s tech and innovation eco-system,” Modi had tweeted on Wednesday. Mr. Liu signed an agreement on Thursday to set up electronics manufacturing facilities that would employ 100,000 in the neighbouring southern state of Telangana.
A 17-member delegation of Foxconn management led by chairman Young Liu visited the campus close to the airport on Friday. “Bengaluru was the preferred destination for global companies and had been a forerunner in attracting investment, Foxconn chairman Young Liu said.
The investment – one of Foxconn’s biggest single outlays to date in India – comes amid an accelerating shift by global companies from China as Washington-Beijing tensions grow. Foxconn, however, continues to roll out iPhones from its sprawling assembly complex in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou where it employs some 200,000 people at the moment.
This is Foxconn’s second major investment in India. The company is already making the latest generation of iPhones at a site in Tamil Nadu. Foxconn, the world’s top iPhone assembler, has since 2019 manufactured Apple handsets in India at its plant in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. Two other Taiwanese suppliers, Wistron and Pegatron, also manufacture and assemble Apple devices in India.
Apple said last September it would manufacture its latest iPhone 14 in India, just weeks after launching the flagship model. But India accounts for less than five percent of Apple’s global production lagging behind the US, China, Japan and five other countries.
Foxconn, which stands second globally in manufacturing Apple phones, posted an income of 206 billion dollars in 2021. Foxconn is said to be the world’s largest electronics manufacturer. As of last year, it ranks 20th in the Fortune Global 500. Foxconn has 173 campuses and offices in 24 countries or regions around the world including China, Japan, Vietnam, the Czech Republic and the US.