Foxconn wants India to have parallel manufacturing hub to China, to invest $5 bn

World's largest electronics contract manufacturer Foxconn has intended to invest $5 billion in India. Foxconn which is known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd, headquartered in Tucheng, Taiwan, is best known globally as the manufacturer of Apple's iPhones and iPads.

To make India a parallel manufacturing hub to China for export to key markets across Europe and the US, Foxconn will aggressively push operations in the country. A top official at the Taiwanese company said Foxconn will ramp up Indian operations in an “exponential manner“, the confidence coming from the implementation of GST as well as imposition of an import duty on mobiles phones that would discourage sourcing from China and other foreign locations.

Foxconn chairman and CEO Terry Gou, has already committed more investments to India during his visit here, and has also spoken about partnerships with local players and industrial groups.

The expansion will create massive employment opportunities in the India, the official said and the company is in serious talks with many state governments. States such as Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Haryana and Telangana are on the radar. These states are also startup hubs of India so a huge opportunity is foreseen.

After the government introduced tax benefits for companies making phones locally around two years ago, there has been an increase in domestic sourcing against import of fully-built units from China. However, there was uncertainty in the industry on whether the differential -around 10% benefits for local manufacturing -would be maintained in the GST era.

Recently Indian government imposed a 10% customs duty on phones and key parts such as chargers, headsets, batteries and USB cables, a move that the industry believes will spur investments in local manufacturing.
A large part of the investments could be directed towards setting up of a display fab unit. Foxconn has a sizeable capacity in India and can produce up to four million devices per month.

Founded in 1974 by Terry Guo, Foxconn now has factories across Asia, Europe, Mexico and South America. Together, these factories assemble around 40% of all consumer electronics products sold in the world.

In the past Foxconn had set up its first plant in India which was among the largest mobile handset manufacturing plants in the world. However, it closed the factory in October 2014, due to drying up of orders from Nokia after acquired by Microsoft.

Some notable products that Foxconn manufactures include the BlackBerry, iPad, iPhone, Kindle, Playstation 4, Xbox One, and Wii U. It is also the largest private employer in China. Some of the world's best electronics and mobility products firms such as Apple, Acer, Amazon.com, BlackBerry, Cisco, Dell, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Motorola, Mobility, Nintendo, Nokia, Sony,Toshiba and Vizio are clients of Foxconn.