With the intention of capitalizing on Apple’s aspirations to expand its manufacturing operations in the South Asian nation, the conglomerate Tata Group intends to construct one of the largest iPhone assembly plants in India.
According to individuals who are familiar with the situation, Tata intends to build the factory in Hosur, which is located in the southern region of the state of Tamil Nadu. It is anticipated that the factory will have approximately twenty assembly lines and will employ fifty thousand workers within the next two years, as said by the individuals who declined to be named when discussing undisclosed plans. The location is expected to be operational within a period of twelve to eighteen months.
The plant would improve Apple’s collaboration with Tata, which already has an iPhone manufacturing in the neighboring state of Karnataka that it bought from Wistron. Additionally, the project would reinforce Apple’s ambitions to localize its supply chain. Apple is working with partners in India, Thailand, Malaysia, and other countries to manufacture components and assemblies. This is part of the company’s strategy to diversify its operations away from China.
While a representative from Tata did not immediately react to a request for comment, a spokesperson for Apple declined to comment on the matter.
There have been additional actions made by the Indian conglomerate in order to expand beyond its usual operations, which include everything from salt to software, and to increase its business with Apple. At its current factory in Hosur, where it manufactures iPhone enclosures, sometimes known as metal casings, it has increased the number of employees it employs. Tata has also announced that it will open one hundred retail locations specialising in Apple products. Apple, on the other hand, has already opened two stores around the country and is developing plans to open three more.
Apple’s primary suppliers, like Taiwan’s Foxconn and Pegatron, have increased their production volume in India as a result of the production-linked subsidies that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has implemented. Because of this, Apple was able to assemble more than seven billion iPhones in India during the previous fiscal year, which resulted in India’s part of the device’s production climbing to almost seven percent. Until a few years ago, China was the only country that manufactured all of them. The rest are assembled in China.
When compared to other iPhone manufacturers throughout the world, the new plant is expected to be of a moderate scale. It is likely that it would be larger than the facility that Tata acquired from Wistron, which employs more than 10,000 people, but it would be smaller than the manufacturing plants that Foxconn operates in China that employ hundreds of thousands of workers.
The fact that the new facility is anticipated to begin production at the same time that the previous state-backed financial incentives are about to expire makes it highly probable that Apple and Tata will put pressure on the government to provide subsidies for the factory.