- Friday, February 28, 2025
The electronics maker said in a statement that it “has determined that it will not move forward on the joint venture with Vedanta”, Reuters reported.
By: Shubham Ghosh
IN a major setback to prime minister Narendra Modi’s chipmaking plans in India, Taiwanese major Foxconn on Monday (10) announced its withdrawal from a semiconductor joint venture with Indian conglomerate Vedanta worth $19.5 billion (£15.2 billion).
According to Reuters, the electronics maker said in a statement that it “has determined that it will not move forward on the joint venture with Vedanta”. It did not cite details about the decision.
Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer, inked a pact with Vedanta in 2022 to set up semiconductor and display production units in Gujarat, the prime minister’s home state.
According to Foxconn, it had worked with Vedanta for over a year to bring “a great semiconductor idea to reality”, but they had decided together to end the joint venture, the Reuters report added. The Taiwanese major also said that it will remove its name from what is now an entity fully owned by Vedanta.
Modi, who will seek this third prime ministerial term next year, has stressed on chipmaking a top priority for New Delhi’s economic strategy while chasing a “new era” in electronics manufacturing.
The move by Foxconn will be a blow to his ambitions of luring foreign investors to manufacture chips on Indian soil.
Foxconn, which is best known for assembling iPhones and other Apple products, has been expanding into chips in recent years to diversify its business.
In an earlier report, Reuters said that Modi’s plan faced challenges as Vendanta-Foxconn project witnessing a slow progress as their talks to get European chipmaker STMicroelectronics as a partner were indecisive.
While Vedanta and Foxconn had got STMicro on board for licensing technology, The Indian government wanted the European company to have more “skin in the game”, such as a stake in the partnership.
STMicro was not interested on that and the talks remained in limbo, Reuters had cited a source as saying.
The South Asian country, which expects its semiconductor market to be worth $63 billion (£49.3 billion) in another three years, received last year three applications to set up plants under an incentive scheme worth $10 billion (£7.8 billion).
