Tata Group Buys Wistron’s iPhone Manufacturing Unit In India For $125 Mn

Putting an end to speculations, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Friday (October 27) took to X (formerly Twitter) and shared that the Tata Group will be the first Indian company to produce iPhones. Tata Electronics Private Limited (TEPL) is acquiring the iPhone manufacturing unit of the Taiwanese firm Wistron Corp. 

“PM @narendramodi Ji’s visionary PLI scheme has already propelled India into becoming a trusted & major hub for smartphone manufacturing and exports. Now within just two and a half years, @TataCompanies will now start making iPhones from India for domestic and global markets from India,” the union minister posted.

The minister also assured full support to boost the growth of global Indian electronic companies, which “will in turn drive global electronic brands to lean towards India as one of their trusted manufacturing and talent partners”. 

As part of this deal, Tata will acquire the Karnataka plant of Wistron, which employs about 10,000 people to assemble iPhone14. 

However, this is not the first association of the Tata Group with iPhone production, as it already manufactures the metal body at its Tamil Nadu plant. 

The speculations of this development were ongoing for some time. The discussions around the agreement started soon after Wistron suffered a loss of about $7 Mn due to employee agitation in the Bengaluru plant. Back then, workers had complained about being underpaid and not being paid for overtime.

Though the company accepted some of the allegations, the fate of Wistron in India can be attributed to its inability to crack the supply chain code. 

The global smartphone brand has ambitious goals for its Indian market. According to Counterpoint Research, Apple sold 1.5 Mn units of its iPhones during the first week of the festive season sale. 

Last month, Apple launched its newest iPhone 15s. The Cupertino-based smartphone maker started the pre-booking of its latest iPhone series — iPhone 15, 15 Plus, 15 Pro, and 15 Pro MaxiPhone 15, 15 Plus, 15 Pro, and 15 Pro Max —  in India on September 15.

Just a few days ahead of its launch, a study stated that Apple was all set to end 2023 with a 7% market share in the country, which is largely dominated by Android smartphones.