iPhone maker Foxconn buys huge site in India tech hub

BENGALURU, India

Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn has bought a huge tract of land on the outskirts of Indian tech hub Bengaluru, as it looks to diversify production away from China.

Foxconn is the world’s biggest contract electronics manufacturer and a principal assembler of Apple iPhones.

Both companies are seeking to shift manufacturing away from China after strict COVID policies, a bout of industrial unrest and ongoing diplomatic tensions with the United States hurt production.

The 1.2 million-square-meter acquisition in Devanahalli, near the airport for Bengaluru, was announced in a statement to the London Stock Exchange.

It said that subsidiary Foxconn Hon Hai Technology India Mega Development was paying three billion rupees ($37 million) for the site, the size of more than 50 Manhattan city blocks.

Another Foxconn unit was acquiring land use rights to a 480,000-square-meter site in Vietnam’s Nghe An province, it added.

Karnataka state chief minister Basavaraj S. Bommai said in March that Apple would “soon” manufacture iPhones at a new plant that would create “about 100,000 jobs”.

Bloomberg News reported that month that Foxconn was planning to invest $700 million in a new factory in Karnataka.

Foxconn has manufactured Apple handsets in India since 2019 at its plant in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

The company is expected to break ground on a new facility in Telangana state next week, local media reported.

Two other Taiwanese suppliers, Wistron and Pegatron, also manufacture and assemble Apple devices in India.