Foxconn is set to invest as much as $500 million in the southern Indian state of Telangana. The investment will see new manufacturing plants come online with thousands of new jobs to be created.
Foxconn is one of Apple's most important manufacturing partners and continues to move more manufacturing capacity away from China — a move that Apple has been championing since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing lockdowns in the country that affected production.
It's also reported that Foxconn has spent an additional $37 million on land in Bengaluru as part of the Indian expansion.
25,000 jobs
TechCrunch reports that K.T. Rama Rao, Telangana’s IT minister, says that the investment will see Foxconn become home to 25,000 jobs in the first phase of the move.
Demonstrating the “Telangana Speed”, I am happy to announce the groundbreaking of first of Foxconn’s plants in Telangana at Kongar Kalaan todayWith an investment of over $500M it shall create 25,000 direct jobs in first Phase #Telangana #Foxconn pic.twitter.com/PHThJWxsfTMay 15, 2023
Foxconn already builds some iPhones in the country and has signed a deal that will see it produce Apple's AirPods wireless earbuds in the country as well. Foxconn is far from the only company that has sought to take advantage of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s financial incentives with Pegatron and Wistron two others getting involved.
It isn't yet clear whether Foxconn intends to build Apple's best iPhones in the new facility, but having one Chinese factory be the only one capable of producing iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max (located in Zhengzhou) has so far caused production issues thanks to the aforementioned lockdowns. Apple warned customers towards the end of 2022 that stock shortages could be directly attributed to issues at the plant dubbed iPhone City by some. It also isn't clear how much pressure Apple has put on Foxconn to expand its Indian manufacturing capacity.
As for Foxconn, it's had a presence in India since 2006 and looks set to continue to increase that presence in the years to come — hopefully, that'll make it easier to buy iPhones in the future, too.
