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From our correspondent
NEW DELHI
It is well known that relations between Apple and India are destined to become increasingly intense. Partly because the Cupertino company is trying to diversify its supply chains and partly because its weight in the Indian market is growing. Confirmation of the ongoing trend came on Friday when the Indian Deputy Minister for Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar announced on Apple’s first Taiwanese supplier to open an assembly plant in India in 2017.
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Growth in India
The 125 million dollar agreement is an important milestone in the relationship between the Californian company and New Delhi because with the acquisition of Wistron InfoComm Manufacturing India by Tata Electronics, the Mumbai-based group becomes the first Indian iPhone manufacturer. The Tata Group is one of the largest conglomerates in the country with very varied interests ranging from steel to luxury hotels, from salt to software, from automotive to energy.
The relationship between Wistron and India has also experienced difficult moments. The worst undoubtedly dates back to December 2020 when, in the state of Karnataka, an industrial dispute over non-payment of wages resulted in a protest in which the Indian employees of the Taiwanese company damaged millions of dollars’ worth of equipment. In the following years, Foxconn and Pegatron, two Taiwanese companies that were Apple’s historic suppliers, also opened factories in India.