The top three suppliers of Apple devices in India – Foxconn, Wistron and Pegatron – plan to invest $900 million (Rs 6,645 crore approx) in India in the next five years, a Reuters report said.
The move is being pushed to utilise India’s production-linked incentive (PLI) plan, where manufacturers get economic concessions from the government for the increase in sales of locally manufactured products.
The scheme aims to transform India into a manufacturing powerhouse.
Earlier, Foxconn has already announced that it will be investing about $452 (Rs 40 billion approx) in India while Wistron and Pegatron have committed to invest close to 13 billion rupees and 12 billion rupees, respectively, under the PLI plan, the report said.
It is not clear yet whether all of the investment will target the increase in the production of only Apple devices but the report mentions that majority of the investment would be used to boost iPhone production.
While Foxconn and Pegatron manufacture for other brands apart from Apple, Wistron’s arm in India only makes iPhones.
In terms of the upscaling, Foxconn plans to boost the production of its second-generation iPhone SEs to 400,000 a month, which currently stands at 200,000, by the end of the year. The report says that this plan is expected to create up to 10,000 jobs.
Foxconn also produces Xiaomi devices but it likely to focus the PLI assets on the iPhones.
Pegatron is yet to start operations in India although it has already initiated talks with several states with Tamil Nadu being the most likely candidate to be home to a new iPhone production facility.
This plan will also help Apple diversify its supply chain beyond China which is currently locked in a trade war with the US.
Local manufacturing helps Apple save up on the import duty levied on the company in India where it accounts for just 1 percent of the overall smartphone shipments.
Also, Apple recently launched its online store in India and is building its first company-run retail store in the financial hub of Mumbai.
(With inputs from Reuters)
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