Apple’s biggest iPhone manufacturing unit coming up near Bengaluru: Ashwini Vaishnaw

Apple’s biggest iPhone manufacturing unit is coming up near Bengaluru and will employ around 60,000 people, Telecom and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Tuesday.

Speaking at the Janjatiya Gaurav Divas ceremony, Vaishnaw said that six thousand tribal women residing near Ranchi and Hazaribagh have been trained for making iPhones. He said Apple’s iPhone is now getting made in India and its biggest plant in the country is being set up at Hosur near Bengaluru. 

“60,000 people work in a single factory. The first 6,000 employees of these 60,000 employees are our tribal sisters from places nearby Ranchi and Hazaribagh. Tribal sisters have been trained to make Apple iPhone,” the minister said.

Apple has outsourced the manufacturing of iPhone enclosures to Tata Electronics, which has a plant at Hosur. In India, iPhones are manufactured by electronics giants – Foxconn, Wistron, and Pegatron.

Last week, Reuters reported that Apple supplier Foxconn was planning to boost the workforce at its plant in southern India to 70,000 and would add 53,000 more workers over the next two years. Foxconn’s largest plant is in Zhengzhou – the capital of China’s Henan province.  Zhengzhou Park employs 200,000 workers. 

Foxconn opened its plant in India in 2019 and began producing iPhone 14 this year.

In September, JP Morgan revealed that Apple was looking for ways to move about 5 per cent of iPhone 14 production to India, which is the second-biggest smartphone market after China. The move comes as Apple is cutting production from China, amid the country’s mounting geopolitical tensions and strict Covid lockdown policy.

During an earnings call in July, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that while the June quarter saw record growth in Americas, Europe and the rest of Asia Pacific, Apple’s revenue in India also nearly doubled.

(With input from PTI)