Apple’s Contract Manufacturer Foxconn Set To Invest $1 Billion In Its Tamil Nadu’s Plant Under Union Govt’s PLI Scheme

In a major boost for Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi's Make in India pitch and push for the building of an Aatmanirbhar Bharat, Taiwanese technology manufacturing giant Foxconn is planning to invest $1 billion in India over the next three years, reports Reuters.

The investment is set to take place over three years, which is within the time frame for the Indian government’s new production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme.

Last month, the Modi government had unveiled the Rs 41,000-crore production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme that aims to make India a major production hub for exporting mobile phones is getting a positive response from the mobile phone manufacturers. Two of Apple's Taiwanese manufacturers, Foxconn and Winstron, have applied for the scheme.

Other major global players in the mobile manufacturing including South Korean Samsung and Singapore-based Flextronics are also expected to submit their applications for the PLI scheme soon. Besides, Indian companies like Lava, Dixon Technologies and Karbonn have applied for the scheme so far.

The firms can apply till 31 July and the announcement of the selected companies will be done by early August.

Five global and five local companies will be selected initially for the scheme.

Foxconn, which makes phones for Apple and several other firms, already has a production facility in Chennai while the Wistron, which makes for Apple exclusively, has a factory in Bangalore.

One of the largest contract manufacturer for Apple's high-end iPhones, Foxconn's plans to double down its existing investments in India come at a time when Apple has made a strong push on its partners to move the manufacturing of iPhones out of China.

Foxconn's massive investment is expected to be channelled into Tamil Nadu's Sriperumbudur where it already has a plant where it manufactures Apple's iPhone XR. The plant is located just about 50 kilometres from Chennai.

The investment is likely to create as many as 6,000 skilled jobs.

It should be noted that Foxconn also operates a separate plant in neighbouring State of Andhra Pradesh (AP)'s Sri City where it manufactures smartphones for Chinese company Xiaomi Corp and others.

Just last month, without giving out any details, Foxconn's Chairman Liu Young-Way had said that the company would ramp up its investments in India.