Taiwan’s Foxconn (2317. TW), the world’s biggest contract electronics manufacturer and assembler of Apple iPhones, signed an agreement on Monday to invest 16 billion rupees ($194 million) in a new electronic components manufacturing facility that will create 6,000 jobs. The facility will be for Foxconn Industrial Internet (FII), a Foxconn unit, with the proposed campus coming up at the Kancheepuram district near the state capital of Chennai, a state government source said on condition of anonymity.
The government official added that the plant will assemble high-end electronics components for mobile phones. It will be independent of the company’s current sprawling campus near Chennai, where it currently assembles flagship Apple iPhones for the domestic and international markets, employing 35,000 people. The official added that the investment by Fii will help the state’s economy. The agreement was reached during a meeting between Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin and Brand Cheng, CEO of Fii, the source added.
This is the second major announcement from Foxconn this month that could help it diversify its operations outside China. Last week, it bought a vast tract of land on the outskirts of Bengaluru to build a factory to manufacture Apple iPhone parts and other products. The move was seen as a reaction to heightened global economic concerns and growing tensions with the United States, which have led many companies to look for alternatives to Chinese production sites.
The company has already made several investments in India, with its parent firm Hon Hai Technology investing $1.1 billion to build a factory for liquid-crystal display screens there. Hon Hai is also in the final stages of building a campus in the Indian city of Pune for research and development for its various electronics businesses.
Foxconn’s parent company is preparing for its first public offering of shares in Hong Kong later this year. BASED ON ITS LATEST MARKET ESTIMATES, the IPO will value the company at around $31 billion. The share sale is expected to occur in the third quarter of this year.
In addition to a planned IPO, Foxconn is expanding its US presence. Earlier this month, CEO Terry Woo attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison for a series of tech talks marked by greater transparency than in previous years but still required attendees to sign nondisclosure agreements, even though the company was publicly disclosed in advance as sponsoring the event.
Meanwhile, Foxconn’s unit in Wisconsin has resumed operations after a month-long shutdown due to workers protesting over food quality at the company’s hostels. The company has said it would gradually increase the number of employees at its sprawling campus in Sriperumbudur, where it assembles iPhones for the global market, before returning to total production in early January. The company has yet to confirm the resumption of production at its other plants in Wisconsin.
