Foxconn plans to invest up to $1 billion to expand a factory in southern India where the Taiwanese contract manufacturer assembles Apple iPhones, Reuters reports today, citing “two sources.”
Sankalp Phartiyal and Yimou Lee for Reuters:
The move, the scale of which has not previously been reported, is part of a quiet and gradual production shift by Apple away from China as it navigates disruptions from a trade war between Beijing and Washington and the coronavirus crisis.
“There’s a strong request from Apple to its clients to move part of the iPhone production out of China,” one of the sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
MacDailyNews Take: BLTN.
Foxconn’s planned investment in the Sriperumbur plant, where Apple’s iPhone XR is made some 50 km west of Chennai, will take place over the course of three years, the second source said.
Some of Apple’s other iPhones models, made by Foxconn in China, will be made at the plant, said both sources, who declined to be identified as the talks are private and details have yet to be finalised.
Taipei-headquartered Foxconn will add some 6,000 jobs at the Sriperumbur plant in Tamil Nadu state under the plan, one of the sources said.
MacDailyNews Take: Tim Cook seems to have smartly modified his stance beyond mere “adjustments” in a few short, yet eventful months:
The question for us is: Was the resilience there or not? And do we need to make some changes? My perspective sitting here today is that if there are changes, you’re talking about adjusting some knobs, not some sort of wholesale fundamental change. — Apple CEO Tim Cook, Fox Business, February 28, 2020
‘Tis prudent, of course, to not keep all of your eggs in one basket, as Apple clearly sees now. — MacDailyNews, June 21, 2019
This coronavirus outbreak could light a fire under Apple to finally diversify their production in order to mitigate risk from having too many of the eggs in on basket (China). If so, something good could come from it, at least. – MacDailyNews, February 18, 2020
That’s a lot of cheese….
This is not just APPLE moving away from China. It’s Taiwan moving things away from China. Remember, Foxconn is a LARGE Taiwanese company that China has a LOT of leverage over. I’m sure there’s some internal pressure from Taiwanese officials to also diversify a bit more.