Highlighting Apple’s expansion of manufacturing in India, the world’s second-biggest smartphone market, Taiwan’s Wistron Corp plans to assemble printed circuit boards (PCBs) for iPhones at its new plant in southern India.
The local assembly of PCBs by Wistron’s India unit will be a first for the contract manufacturer, which began making Apple’s low-priced SE model in the southern tech hub of Bengaluru in 2017. It currently assembles the 6S and 7 iPhone models there as well.
A PCB is a bed for key components such as processors, memory and wireless chip sets that are the heart of an electronic device. Once assembled, or populated with components, PCBs account for about half the cost of a smartphone.
Wistron’s second iPhone plant, some 65 km (40 miles) from Bengaluru, is expected to become operational by April, the sources said, adding that it will make iPhone 7 and 8 models, some of which will be exported. The facility will be capable of producing up to 8 million smartphones annually, they said.
Wistron’s bigger rival Foxconn, which began making iPhone XR models in India last year, already assembles PCBs for those devices locally.
MacDailyNews Take: The more Apple, via suppliers, can “Make In India,” the better for saving on Indian import taxes!
More robots in action.
How many trees are they.cutting down?