- Tuesday, March 04, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Indian minister of state for electronics and information technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Friday (3) announced along with Basavaraj Bommai, the chief minister of the southern state of Karnataka, that a 300-acre land has been allotted to Foxconn, one of Apple’s biggest iPhone maker, on the outskirts of state capital Bengaluru, which is also India’s information technology capital.
They said the factory, once becoming operational, would provide employment to 100,000 people. The unit will also be one of the biggest for manufacturing Apple phones.
According to one Bloomberg report, Taiwan-based Foxconn is planning to invest $700 million in the new factory to boost local production.
Sharing the news on Twitter, Chandrasekhar praised the “double engine sarkaar” (two-engine governments as his Bharatiya Janata Party is ruling both at the federal level and Karnataka) of prime minister Modi and chief minister Bommai.
Bommai, who will face an acid test as Karnataka goes to elections in another few months, said the investment will create a “whole lot of opportunities” for the state.
The Bloomberg also cited sources as saying that the upcoming factory may also assemble Apple’s handsets. It also added that Foxconn may use the unit to make some parts of its fledgling electric-vehicle business.
A 17-member delegation from the Taiwanese firm led by chairman Young Liu paid a visit to the campus close to the Bengaluru airport on Friday.
“Bengaluru was the preferred destination for global companies and had been a forerunner in attracting investment, Liu said.
The delegates were set to fly to New Delhi in the evening to meet Modi.
The investment comes when global firms are accelerating shift from China as the country’s tension with the US grows.
Foxconn, which continues rolling out iPhones from its big assembly complex in the city of Zhengzhou in China, has made its second major investment in India with this. It is already producing latest generation of iPhones at a site in Tamil Nadu, a neighbouring state to Karnataka.
Globally, Foxconn stands second in manufacturing Apple phones and posted an income of $206 billion in 2021.
Called the world’s largest electronics manufacturer, it ranked 20th in the Fortune Global 500 last year.
