Google To Appoint Former Apple Executive As India Policy Head

Tech giant Google is reportedly set to appoint manufacturing and policy veteran Sreenivasa Reddy as its top government affairs executive in India.

The company is looking to make this hiring with an eye on tackling legal challenges and expanding hardware assembly in the country, Bloomberg reported.

Reddy is currently working as a senior engineering executive at Microsoft. He is likely to join Google towards the end of this year, as per the report.

Prior to Microsoft, Reddy also worked with Apple’s India regulatory team . He also worked with Swedish telecom-gear maker Ericsson AB at a senior position.

Google is currently in talks with multiple vendors to move production of its Pixel smartphones to India. While the company is believed to start manufacturing in India with Pixel, it is likely to expand to other hardware products such as speakers.

As per reports, Google was exploring deals with companies such as Lava International, Dixon Technologies and Foxconn’s Indian subsidiary for the same. Google also believes that moving the production to India could help drive the sale of its smartphones in the country.

Earlier in May, IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw met Google CEO Sundar Pichai at the tech major’s headquarters in California’s Mountain View. The two discussed a slew of issues ranging from India Stack to the government’s ‘Make in India’ push.

It is pertinent to note that Google reportedly manufactured 9 Mn Pixel smartphones in 2022, a majority of which were produced in China.

The development comes at a time when Apple has also been rapidly expanding its manufacturing capacity in the country. The Cupertino-based smartphone manufacturer had exported iPhones worth INR 10,000 Cr from India in May 2023.

Google is involved in legal cases in India. Amid ongoing Google antitrust case, the tech major recently filed an appeal in the Supreme Court (SC) challenging the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal’s (NCLAT) ruling that upheld the INR 1,338 Cr penalty against the company.

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