Taiwan multinational electronics firm Foxconn, a key supplier to Apple Inc, plans to increase its investments in India as part of its efforts to diversify from China.

The plans for investment come at a time when India is wooing electronic manufacturers with special schemes and trade relations between China and the US are getting worse.

Foxconn chairman Young Liu told his shareholders at the company’s annual general meeting that “India will be a good place to develop and we are fully working in that direction. We will share more details regarding our next step of investments (in India) in the coming months."

He said Foxconn “views the outlook there (India) very favourably” and the country is “a bright spot” in its prospectus. The Taiwanese firm produces Xiaomi and some models of Apple in India.

The Foxconn chief said though the company’s investment plans in India and Taiwan had been “slightly affected” due to the coronavirus pandemic, the direction to expand in the two countries “is unchanged”.

Foxconn — world’s biggest contract electronic products manufacturer — supplies components to many multi-nationals starting from Apple, HP, Dell, Amazon and Google to Chinese firms such as Xiaomi and Huawei.

Foxconn is among many multinational companies that are looking to spread their manufacturing bases across the globe from China. This is because nations such as Japan do not want their supplies to be affected by any problem in China, including the coronavirus pandemic.

Also, China’s trade dispute with US and other nations makes exports of electronic products from Chinese facilities suffer higher penal tariffs.

In addition, the Taiwanese firm had suspended manufacturing in January-February this year due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Foxconn has been betting big on India for the last few years. In 2018, the Taiwanese firm said it would invest Rs 2,500 crore in India to expand its Sriperumbudur unit, 30 km from Chennai.

Taking part in a webinar on Electronics Design, System and Manufacturing, Foxconn managing director Josh Foulger said Tamil Nadu has played a critical role in the success of its project.

The Taiwanese firm has told the Tamil Nadu government that it is interested in investing further in the state. This is despite the fact that Foxconn shelved its plan to set up an electronic manufacturing plant in Maharashtra of nearly Rs 37,000 crore earlier this year.

Chairman Liu told his shareholders that Foxconn invested $371 million (approximately Rs 2,800 crore) in India during 2018-19.

Tamil Nadu electronic clusters

Get Swarajya in your inbox.