Apple and Foxconn's idea of wanting to transfer production capacity can be said to be "Sima Zhao's heart, everyone knows", after opening the diversification chain strategy, Apple has been looking for a new "production base", and it just so happens that India also wants to develop its own mobile phone manufacturing industry, so the two sides can be said to hit it off.
As Apple's core foundry, Foxconn has been keeping pace with Apple, after Apple plans to build a factory in India, Foxconn also decided to follow Apple's footsteps to invest in India to build a factory, but what Foxconn didn't expect is that its road to investing in India to build a factory does not seem to be as smooth as imagined, but is full of various problems.
Foxconn went to India to build a factory
From the development history of Foxconn, it is not difficult to see that it is after investing in Chinese mainland to build factories and enjoying the dividends of the development of manufacturing in Chinese mainland has become a demographic dividend, Foxconn began to develop rapidly. It is precisely with the increase in production capacity that Foxconn was selected by Apple to be responsible for OEM iPhones.
But what people didn't expect was that Foxconn's founder Terry Gou said very arrogantly: I have built so many factories in Chinese mainland, I am "appreciating food", and Foxconn can withdraw from Chinese mainland at any time. Foxconn's remarks have also caused dissatisfaction among many domestic netizens, and now Foxconn is really preparing to withdraw from Chinese mainland and invest in India to build factories, Guo Taiming realized that Foxconn's cost has little to do with its management, but because of China's demographic dividend and market size, perfect ** chain system, etc.
In 2006, Foxconn invested in India for the first time, but the mobile phone assembly plant mainly served Nokia, and as Nokia gradually withdrew from the Indian market, Foxconn also began to reduce the scale of its presence in India. According to relevant data, in 2014, Foxconn only had two factories left in India, and the number of employees also increased from 30,000** to 2,000 at its peak.
When it returned to the Indian market again, Foxconn's main partner had become Apple. In 2015, Foxconn announced its investment plan in India, and from the content of the plan announced by Foxconn, Foxconn is ready to spend $5 billion in five years to build 10 to 12 factories and data centers in India.
Until 2017, Foxconn's factory in India began to be responsible for the OEM production of iPhones, but for a long time, Foxconn's factories in India could not be responsible for the most advanced iPhones, and it was not until iPhone14 that Foxconn's India factory was responsible for the first time.
From this point, it can be seen that Foxconn's construction of factories in India is not smooth, not only the number of factories does not reach the expected scale, but also the production capacity, revenue, process level and yield rate are not ideal. However, judging from the current situation, Foxconn does not seem to have given up its plan to build a factory in India.
However, recently there was news that Foxconn's factory in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, was hit by heavy rainfall, so it suspended the OEM production of iPhones, and Pegatron's local factory was also suspended.
Foxconn's India plant suspended production
Judging by the news reported by Reuters, Foxconn's factory in Tamil Nadu has suspended production due to heavy rainfall, and the source said: It is not yet decided whether to resume production on Tuesday. After this news came out, it quickly attracted widespread attention from the international community, and some foreign media even said: The general trend has gone.
Naturally, a shutdown will not have any impact on Foxconn, but in fact, Foxconn's factory in India has been shut down many times due to various problems, and it is also facing disputes over employee rights, environmental protection, and social stability.
Previously, Wistron's factory in India caused employee dissatisfaction due to wage and other issues, resulting in a series of incidents such as fires in the industrial park, with losses of more than 100 billion US dollars and the theft of more than 20,000 iPhones. Foxconn's 2010 accident at a factory in Tamil Nadu left one person 40,000 and nine seriously injured for failing to comply with safety norms.
In 2020, more than 2,000 Indian employees clashed with management over overtime pay, resulting in losses of more than $7 million, and many factories were smashed and damaged by violent incidents at factories in Teminad.
In 2021, Foxconn was blamed by the authorities for a public health incident at its factory, with an infection rate of more than 90% among employees.
From these examples, it is not difficult to see that Foxconn's road to invest and build factories in India can be said to be very tortuous, not only because of various issues that have caused controversy, but also many factories have had many accidents.
These accidents caused Foxconn's India factory to be unable to complete the production plan on time, and Foxconn had no choice but to take the order back to the foundry in Chinese mainland to continue production. However, judging from the current situation, Foxconn does not seem to plan to abandon its investment plan in India, and Foxconn has previously reported that it will increase its investment in the Indian factory and expand the number of employees in India to about 70,000.
Postscript:
Judging from the current situation, Foxconn seems to be "going black" on the road of investing and building factories in India, but the outside world is generally not optimistic about Foxconn's investment plan in India, after all, in addition to a series of problems, Foxconn is also facing competition from the Indian Tata Group.
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