Foxconn and Pegatron Target Indian Market for Apple Product Assembly Dominance

Foxconn and Pegatron, two major system assembly factories for Apple, are actively expanding into the Indian market, particularly with Foxconn being the largest in scale. In addition to local assembly of the latest iPhones in India, Foxconn is also estimated to plan the assembly of AirPods and iPads, aiming to dominate the entire Apple product line assembled in India.

Earlier in January, the Indian Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal, stated that Apple aims to increase its manufacturing share in India from the current 5-7% to a maximum of 25%. This represents a significant growth, which will drive the rapid expansion of Foxconn and Pegatron's assembly operations in India.

According to insiders, in the accounting year ending in March 2023, Apple assembled iPhones worth over $7 billion in India, with $5 billion worth of iPhones exported, nearly four times the previous year. Apple may attempt to synchronize the production of the next-generation phones in India and China, possibly as early as this autumn, marking the first simultaneous assembly of Apple phones in both countries. If suppliers continue to expand actively, it is projected that by 2025, one-fourth of Apple's phones could be assembled in India.

According to Indian media reports, since the implementation of the Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for electronics manufacturing in August 2021, approximately 100,000 new job opportunities have been created in the past 19 months, with Foxconn, Pegatron, and Wistron accounting for 60% of them. Foxconn, as the largest contract manufacturer of iPhones in India, has already created over 35,500 job opportunities.