Foxconn To Invest $194 Mn To Set Up New Manufacturing Facility in Tamil Nadu

Contract electronics manufacturer Foxconn has signed a letter of intent (LoI) with the Tamil Nadu government to invest $194 Mn (INR 1,600 Cr) for building a new mobile components manufacturing facility in the state. 

The proposed facility will be established for Foxconn Industrial Internet (Fii), a subsidiary of Foxconn, in the Kanchipuram district. 

The development comes right after a Foxconn delegation led by Chairman Young Liu met Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin and state officials on Monday (July 31). The LoI was signed between the company and the state’s nodal investment promotion agency Guidance Tamil Nadu. 

Speaking on the announcement, Tamil Nadu’s minister for industries, TRB Rajaa, tweeted, “Foxconn’s repeated investments and expansion plans in Tamil Nadu are a testament to the state being the top choice for manufacturing in India for major companies across the world. This is a major achievement for the state.”

The new manufacturing plant is slated to generate more than 6,000 jobs in the area, as per government estimates. 

As per Reuters, the upcoming facility is expected to be operational by late 2024, and will be separate from Foxconn’s existing campus near Chennai, where the contract vendor assembles Apple iPhones. 

However, there is no clarity yet on what kind of mobile components would be produced at the upcoming plant, and whether these will be used for iPhones or other electronic devices. It is pertinent to note that Fii specialises in producing electronic devices, cloud service equipment, and industrial robots. 

Tamil Nadu is among the many state governments in India wooing the Taiwanese manufacturer to set up plants in the respective states. Sources told Reuters that the partnership would bring more ‘high-value technology’ to the state, as it looks to ‘move up the value chain in electronics.’

The move is also a part of the Tamil Nadu government’s plans to further shore up its electronics exports in the future, and give a major boost to the state’s ambition of becoming a $1 Tn economy. 

Foxconn’s decision to expand its presence in Tamil Nadu follows its recent exit from a $19 billion semiconductor fab project in collaboration with energy major Vedanta. This development was followed by Foxconn Chairman Young Liu’s meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the Semicon India 2023 conference.

With the new facility on the horizon and plans to quadruple its workforce at the existing iPhone factory in Chennai, Foxconn, just like other electronics manufacturers, has been looking to diversify its production outside China and to cash-in on India’s attractive production-linked-incentives (PLIs). 

While Apple and Xiaomi are ramping up production in India, other tech giants such as Google are also considering setting up a shop in the country.