India (Common Wealth) _ Tata Group is nearing completion on an agreement to acquire a major Apple Inc. supplier’s facility. According to one estimate, the agreement might be signed as early as August 2023. This initiative, if successful, would be a momentous milestone because it would be the first time a native Indian company entered the world of iPhone assembly.
Tata’s purchase objective is the Wistron facility in the southern state of Karnataka. According to the article, the deal is worth more than $600 million and was the culmination of over a year of discussions. The factory is well-known for producing the iPhone 14 model. It currently has a workforce of over 10,000 people.
According to the source, Wistron has told Apple that it will ship $1.8 billion in iPhones by March 2024. The iPhone maker has promised to increase the factory’s workers by next year. According to the article, once the acquisition is finalized, Tata Group would fulfill these pledges.
According to previous reports, Wistron decided to sell its iPhone assembly plant in India due to difficulties in attaining profitability under Apple’s terms. The company struggled to earn profits purely as an iPhone assembly vendor in India, prompting it to focus on its core IT manufacturing operations in Vietnam and Mexico.
Wistron has difficulty negotiating better margins with Apple, owing to its tiny stature in comparison to global behemoths like Foxconn and Pegatron. Despite its position in iPhone assembly, Wistron had inventory management issues that larger vendors handled more successfully.
Wistron is finally selling its iPhone assembly facility in Kolar to the Tata Group as part of its restructuring efforts. Tata is likely to increase the capacity of the Wistron factory’s iPhone production. This decision is consistent with the company’s strategy of focusing on core operations and exiting the iPhone assembly business in India. It’s worth noting that the Tata Group is apparently conducting experiments in India to build the next iPhone 15 variants.
Wistron’s debut into the Indian market began in 2008 with the creation of a device repair facility. In 2017, the firm extended its operations and began producing iPhones for Apple.
