Apple Supplier Foxconn To Invest $1 Billion In India

Foxconn plans to invest up to $1 billion to expand a factory in southern India where the Taiwanese contract manufacturer assembles Apple iPhones. Fox Business reports: The move, the scale of which has not previously been reported, is part of a quiet and gradual production shift by Apple away from China as it navigates disruptions from a trade war between Beijing and Washington and the coronavirus crisis. “There’s a strong request from Apple to its clients to move part of the iPhone production out of China,” one of the sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters. Foxconn’s planned investment in the Sriperumbur plant, where Apple’s iPhone XR is made some 50 km west of Chennai, will take place over the course of three years. Some of Apple’s other iPhones models, made by Foxconn in China, will be made at the plant. Taipei-headquartered Foxconn will add some 6,000 jobs at the Sriperumbur plant in Tamil Nadu state under the plan. It also operates a separate plant in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, where it makes smartphones for China’s Xiaomi Corp, among others. “With India’s labour cheaper compared with China, and the gradual expansion of its supplier base here, Apple will be able to use the country as an export hub,” Neil Shah of Hong Kong-based tech researcher Counterpoint said.