Foxconn buys equipment from Apple for expansion in India

FOXCONN Technology Group has bought US$33 million worth of equipment from an Apple unit for its operations in India over the past year, signalling the key iPhone assembler’s accelerating expansion in the country.

An Indian subsidiary of the Taiwanese company acquired equipment from Apple Operations for operational needs, according to a filing from Foxconn’s Taipei-listed flagship unit Hon Hai Precision Industry.

The filing offered a rare glimpse into Foxconn’s dealings with its biggest customer, which sometimes helps finance the cost of equipment that the Taiwanese company uses to make the majority of the world’s iPhones.

In May, India’s Minister of State for Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that Apple is interested in increasing electronics production in the country, a month after the US company’s chief executive officer Tim Cook renewed a pledge to invest in the region during a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Apple tripled iPhone production and assembled more than US$7 billion of iPhones in India last fiscal year, making almost 7 per cent of its handsets in the country. Meanwhile, Foxconn is planning to invest about US$700 million to build a new plant in the southern Indian state of Karnataka partly to ramp up local production of iPhone parts, Bloomberg News has reported. BLOOMBERG