Foxconn Chairman Believes India Could Receive Billions in Investment
On Monday, Foxconn, a major Taiwanese technology company and a key supplier for Apple, announced its intention to invest “several billion dollars” in India. The company aims to shift its manufacturing operations from China in order to diversify its production.
Foxconn – also known by its official name Hon Hai Precision Industry – is the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer and assembles equipment for many companies, notably Apple’s iPhones.
It operates in more than two dozen countries, but most of its operations are based in China — a dependency it plans to reduce as media reports of significant investments in India.
“From the perspective of India’s potential market size, and if we can fully implement our plans there, I think the multi-billion dollar investment is just the beginning,” Foxconn Chairman Young Liu said when asked if the company plans to invest $2. billion in India.
In May, Foxconn announced that it would buy a huge plot of land on the outskirts of Bengaluru, India’s technology hub, for $37 million.
It currently has about nine manufacturing campuses and has more than 30 factories in India with “business revenue of about $10 billion a year,” according to Liu.
The company plans to expand its India operations into “critical components” for consumer electronics and electric vehicles to improve its competitiveness, he said, without elaborating.
“Delivery (of critical components) will probably have to wait until next year, but this year the relevant construction work has started,” Liu said, adding that operations will take place in three Indian states.
Last month, Foxconn pulled out of a $19.4 billion deal with India’s Vedanta to manufacture semiconductors in Gujarat state, dealing a blow to New Delhi’s plan to increase self-sufficiency in the technology supply chain.
Foxconn posted a 1 percent drop in second-quarter net profit on Monday, while revenue fell 14 percent from a year ago to 1.3 trillion Taiwan dollars ($40.8 billion), a sign of weakening global electronics markets amid an economic downturn.
