Apple will diversify its iPhone production with a new Foxconn location in India, as well as investing millions of dollars in research centers in Germany.
Officials said on Friday that Foxconn, the Taiwanese maker of Apple’s iPhones, will build a new factory in India, in another step by the US company in its strategy to diversify its production outside China. Most of Apple’s smartphone production is in China, but tough anti-coronavirus policies in recent years and tensions with the United States have called that model into question.
“Apple phones will soon be manufactured in the state,” Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj S Bommai said on Twitter on Friday. “In addition to creating about 100,000 jobs, it will create many opportunities in Karnataka,” he added, the state where the technology center of Bangalore is located.
According to local media, Foxconn chairman Young Liu visited Bangalore on Friday after meeting this week with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi. “Our conversations covered various topics and focused on strengthening India’s technology and innovation ecosystem,” Modi wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.
Liu signed a deal on Thursday to set up electronics factories, which will create 100,000 jobs in neighboring Telangana state. Apple and Foxconn did not respond to AFP questions.
Foxconn, the world’s largest iPhone manufacturer, has been working for Apple in India since 2019, at its factory located in Tamil Nadu. Two other Taiwanese companies, Wistron and Pegatron, also manufacture and assemble Apple devices in India. Last September, Apple announced that it would manufacture its new iPhone 14 in India.
Despite all this, India currently accounts for less than 5% of Apple’s production chain, according to Bloomberg, behind the United States, China, Japan and five other countries.
Apple: another billion euros in its technology center in Germany
US giant Apple announced on Thursday that it plans to invest 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) over the next few years in a chip development center in the German city of Munich. The move, which will take place over the next six years, follows a previous commitment of €1 billion in 2021, when Apple made Munich the new headquarters for its European “silicon design centre”, according to the group’s statement.
This expansion into Germany is part of Apple’s global strategy to increasingly develop proprietary chips for iPhones, MacBooks, iPads and other devices. These R&D facilities, dedicated to the Apple Silicon processors that make up the Group’s devices, opened at the end of 2022 and are the Group’s “largest engineering center” in Europe.
This new investment package will be used, among other things, to open more labs and spaces that allow “closer collaboration between more than 2,000 engineers in Bavaria”, according to Apple. The American giant has been based in Munich since 1981 and currently has more than 4,500 employees in Germany, mainly in the south of the country, focused on the development of semiconductors.
The Bavarian capital is already home to the headquarters of other industry heavyweights such as Siemens or BMW and has become one of the pillars of technological innovation in Europe.
