Tata group is planning an iPhone factory in Hosur, in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. The plant is expected to feature approximately 20 assembly lines and hire 50,000 employees within a two-year timeframe. The site will be operational in 12 to 18 months and aims to bolster Apple’s efforts to localise its supply chain and strengthen partnership with Tata. Tata already has an iPhone factory it acquired from Wistron corp in neighbouring Karnataka. The new plant will be mid-sized compared to iPhone factories globally, but is likely be bigger than the Wistron factory which employs more than 10,000 people, and smaller than Foxconn’s biggest China facilities that employ hundreds of thousands.
The initiative is part of Tata’s plans to build one of India’s biggest iPhone assembly plants, tapping in on Apple Inc.’s ambitions to increase manufacturing in the South Asian country, diversifying its operations away from China by working with assembly and component manufacturing partners in India, Thailand, Malaysia and elsewhere.
The Indian conglomerate, Tata, has taken more steps to increase its business with Apple and expand beyond its traditional businesses that range from salt to software. It also plans to launch 100 retail stores with its focus on Apple products. Apple, on its part, has opened two stores in the nation and is planning three more. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s production-linked subsidies have spurred Apple’s key suppliers such as Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology Group and Pegatron Corp to ramp up in India. This helped Apple assemble iPhones worth over $7 billion in India in the previous fiscal year, increasing the country’s share of the device’s production to about 7 per cent. The rest are assembled in China, which until a few years ago made all of them.
Leave a Reply