Foxconn, a major Apple supplier, purchased a massive plot of land on the outskirts of the Indian tech capital Bengaluru on Tuesday to diversify manufacturing away from China.
Foxconn, or Hon Hai Precision Industry, as it is formally called, is the largest contract electronics manufacturer in the world and a key iPhone assembler for Apple.
After severe restrictions from Covid rules, an upsurge in worker discontent, and continued political problems with the United States, corporations are looking to move production elsewhere.
A statement sent to the London Stock Exchange detailed the purchase of a 1.2 million square meter (13 million square foot) plot in Devanahalli, near the airport serving Bengaluru.
Foxconn, an Apple supplier, has won an order for AirPods and is planning a $200 million plant in India.
The land is larger than 50 Manhattan city blocks, and it was reported that Foxconn Hon Hai Technology India Mega Development would be purchasing it for three billion rupees ($37 million).
Nghe An province in Vietnam, covering an area of 480,000 square meters, was acquired by another Foxconn subsidiary.
Karnataka’s chief minister Basavaraj S. Bommai said in March that Apple would “soon” open a new facility in the state, where “about 100,000 jobs” would be created.
In the same month, Bloomberg News reported that Foxconn intended to spend $700 million on a new facility in the Indian state of Karnataka.
Young Liu, chairman of Foxconn, visited the state then and spoke with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has pushed international companies to set up factories in India.
Foxconn’s factory in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu has been producing Apple iPhones since 2019.
According to local media, the business will begin construction on a new site in Telangana state next week.
Apple is being sued for $2 billion in London for allegedly’ throttling’ millions of iPhones.
Wistron and Pegatron, two additional Taiwanese vendors, also produce and assemble Apple products in India.
Positive expansion
Apple CEO Tim Cook launched the company’s first two shops in the world’s most populous nation, India, last month as part of an ongoing push into the Indian market.
The California company has placed a huge wager on the country of 1.4 billion people, with the world’s second-highest smartphone penetration rate (behind China).
Apple has already proven “quite successful” in India, according to Navkendar Singh of market research company International Data Corporation, who spoke with AFP.
Pegatron is Apple’s newest iPhone 14 manufacturer in India.
He said,
This is good growth considering that Apple always plays at over $500.
The largest corporation in the world by market cap is also increasing its production facilities in India.
Immediately after the September 2017 iPhone 14, Apple announced that the flagship model would be made in India.
According to Bloomberg, the nation only manufactured 7% of Apple’s iPhones last year, placing it well behind the US, China, Japan, and other countries.
The biggest iPhone plant in China, controlled by Foxconn, was the site of violent demonstrations in November, disrupting production in the nation that manufactures more Apple goods than any other.
Hundreds of workers in the central city of Zhengzhou demonstrated against working conditions and salary, partly because of popular anger over the government’s zero-tolerance policy against Covid during the epidemic.
Counterpoint Technology Market Research senior analyst Prachir Singh told AFP that having a backup plan or diversifying into many areas of business helps to reduce the risk of becoming too reliant on one area.
However,
it’s not like the Chinese operations will come down to zero,
he said.
It’s about making the same kind of world in India so that people there have more than one haven.
