Tata Eyes Expansion Of Tamil Nadu iPhone Unit; Likely To Employ Up To 28K People

Tata Group’s arm Tata Electronics, which recently acquired Wistron’s iPhone assembly plant in Karnataka, is reportedly planning to double the size of its existing unit in Tamil Nadu’s Hosur.

The expansion may need 12-18 months and employ 25,000 to 28,000 people at the facility. The expanded unit may not only manufacture products for Apple but also for other phone companies, as per a report by ET.

The company is also said to be scouting for land near its manufacturing unit in Hosur. 

This comes at a time, when Apple has set ambitious goals for itself with respect to the Indian smartphone market. Tata will cater to the smartphone major’s export needs through the enhanced unit. 

Though Tata was already associated with Apple and manufactured metal bodies for the products in its Hosur plant, it acquired Wistron’s iPhone assembly unit recently for $125 Mn and joined the ecosystem of Apple’s vendors in India. The development came after the Wistron unit, which makes the base versions of the latest iPhone 15, and iPhone 14, saw a protest by the employees on the grounds of low pay packages and no overtime. 

Since the acquisition by Tata, the employees are reportedly expecting better working conditions in the long run but they don’t seem to be expecting a salary hike immediately. 

Recently, Apple was reported to be planning the production of iPhones worth INR 1 Lakh Cr in India by the end of March 2024. Meanwhile, the company already scaled up its manufacturing capacity in the country to INR 60,000 Cr during the first seven months of the ongoing fiscal year.

In case of failure to reach the set goals, it is expected to do so by the end of FY25 certainly. Currently, the company is preparing to meet the festive demand in the US and other Western countries.

However, the company recently faced hiccups in the country after some members of the Parliament received an alert from Apple about “state-sponsored attackers” trying to compromise their iPhones remotely. Following this, the government officials summoned representatives of the company to explain the matter, the final output of which is yet to be revealed.