Foxconn Buys 300 Acre Land Near Bengaluru After Bommai-Led BJP Govt Approved Its Proposal To Build Rs 8,000 Crore Apple Manufacturing Unit

Apple supplier Foxconn has purchased a large piece of land in the outskirts of Bengaluru, in an effort to expand production out of China.

Foxconn, also called Hon Hai Precision Industry, is the world's largest contract electronics manufacturer and a primary assembler for Apple iPhones.

Seeking to diversify away from China due to Covid policies and diplomatic tensions with the US hurting their production, both Apple and Foxconn are aiming to reduce their reliance on Chinese manufacturing.

The company in a statement to the London Stock Exchange informed of the acquisition of 1.2 million sqm of land near Bengaluru airport.

Foxconn Hon Hai Tech India Mega Development, the subsidiary of Taiwanese tech giant, was reportedly paying Rs 3 billion ($37 million) for the site.

Another Foxconn subsidiary is obtaining land use rights for a 480,000 sqm site in Vietnam's Nghe An province, it added.

This comes after the CM Basavaraj Bommai led BJP government in Karnataka had earlier in March approved Rs 8,000 crore proposal by Foxconn to set up a mobile phone manufacturing unit near Bengaluru.

The proposal was approved in the State High-Level Clearance Committee (SHLCC) meeting chaired by Chief Minister Bommai.

The manufacturing facility will come up on 300 acres of land at the Information Technology Investment Region (ITIR) industrial area, Doddaballapur, in Devanahalli Taluk, near the Bengaluru International Airport.

Foxconn will invest Rs 8,000 crore in three phases. The project is expected to generate 50,000 direct jobs in the next three to five years and more than 1 lakh jobs in the state over the next ten years.

The proposed Foxconn facility will have a production capacity of one lakh mobile phones by December 2025. It aims to scale the production to two crores by December 2029.

Foxconn is expected to invest Rs 3,000 crore in the first phase during the 2023-24 fiscal, RsRs 4,000 crore in the second 2025-26 phase and Rs 1,000 crore in the last phase during 2026-27.

The big-ticket investment represents a significant win for CM Bommai-led government as it seeks to catapult the state, which is already India's undisputed information technology powerhouse, into a manufacturing hub.