TAIPEI. After diplomacy comes business. After two days in which India was the center of world diplomacy between the G20 foreign ministers’ summit and Raisina Dialogue (with Giorgia Meloni as guest of honour), new announcements of investments in the country led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrive. According to the Wall Street Journal, Foxconn is considering strong expansion in India. We are talking about Apple’s main supplier for its iPhones. The Taiwanese giant is keen to expand iPhone production at its existing plant near Chennai in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The goal is to ramp iPhone production to about 20 million units annually by 2024.
It’s not all. According to Bloomberg, Foxconn also plans to build a new iPhone component plant on a 300-acre site near Kempegowda International Airport in Bangalore. The capital of the state of Karnataka, a southwestern region of India with one of the highest per capita GDP levels in the country, aims to become one of the main manufacturing hubs in the region. The project would be worth an investment of about 700 million dollars and would also benefit local employment, given that the current jobs provided by Foxconn would triple up to 100,000.
The company’s chairman, Young Liu, visited both sites and also met with Modi in New Delhi. In recent years, the Modi government has introduced billion-dollar incentives to attract international manufacturers to India, with a desire to boost jobs in advanced manufacturing and reduce reliance on imported electronics. A maneuver that fits well with the attempt by Foxconn and the other giants of the sector to diversify their business outside of China. A trend that has led to the partial relocation of some production lines to Vietnam, the other major attraction of this phenomenon. Suffice it to say that according to Taiwanese DigiTimes Research forecasts, India should assemble as many as half of the world‘s iPhones by 2027.
However, this does not mean that companies want or can leave China. On the contrary. Before going to India, the president of Foxconn was in China. In particular in Zhengzhou, home to the immense factory owned by him renamed “iphone City” where in recent months there have been mass protests by workers over the non-payment of bonuses during the anti-Covid restrictions. Young Liu secured the company’s expansion into China after the local government launched major efforts to persuade the Taiwanese giant to maintain its presence in Henan province. And Foxconn has leased a new 293-acre land in Zhengzhou Comprehensive Bonded Zone for about $28 million.
On the other hand, Terry Gou also has important relationships to maintain in China. The Foxconn founder has announced his intention to run in the Taiwanese presidential elections in January 2024. It is not yet said whether the Kuomintang (main opposition party) will allow him to run in its primaries, but Gou has already said that if not, he will run from independent. His position is much more open to dialogue with Beijing than that of the current majority party (President Tsai Ing-wen’s Democratic Progressive Party) and keeping channels open in China is fundamental for him not only at an economic and commercial level , but also to present itself as the “great stabilizer” of tensions on the Taiwan Strait. A friend of Donald Trump, from whom he was received at the White House in 2019, Gou moves his cards on the Asian markets. Aware that you can hardly do without him.