Taiwan-based Apple supplier Wistron is supposedly hiring 10,000 additional workers to assist in building iPhones in its India factory. According to The New Indian Express, the Taiwanese contract manufacturer expected to start the commercial production of iPhones at its plant in the Kolar district in the next few days.
The manufacturing facility in Kolar expected to generate around 10,000 jobs. As per the Karnataka Industrial Policy, 70 per cent of employment should be given to locals. Accordingly, at least 7,000 people from Karnataka expected to get jobs here. The company believed to have already recruited about 2,000 people so far.
The kolar manufacturing facilty is expected to generate around
“We are happy to note that the recruitment process has begun,” said Gaurav Gupta, Principal Secretary to India’s Industries and Commerce Department. He added that they are “going to start production soon.” Wistron has not yet confirmed the news.
The new plant, which came online in April, is about 40 miles outside of Bengaluru and is believed to specialize in PCB assembly.
A PCB serves as a bed for key iPhone components like processors, storage, and memory, and usually accounts for about half the cost of a smartphone. That makes PCB assembly in the country a significant boon for Apple, as it avoids taxes levied by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to boost local manufacturing and create new jobs.
Apple has been setting up iPhone manufacturing hubs in India ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi began promoting his “Made in India” initiative, which requires that 30 per cent of products sold by foreign companies be manufactured or produced within the country.
India is also the world’s second-largest smartphone market. Still, just one in four Indians is said to own a smartphone, providing Apple with an opportunity to sell iPhones to millions of new customers, while also diversifying its supply chains and moving away from its heavy reliance on China as an operations base.
A report from The Times of India earlier this month claimed an unnamed Apple supplier is planning to move a significant amount of production operations to India, to accommodate the export of $5 billion worth of devices from India.
Apple suppliers Wistron, Pegatron, Foxconn, and Samsung, are all expected to set up production facilities in India, and Foxconn has already announced that it plans to invest as much as $1 billion in India and has already established its first manufacturing plant in the country.