The iconic iPhone will soon roll out from the shopfloors of an Indian company.
The Tata group is reportedly close to buying the iPhone facility of Taiwan’s Wistron in southern Karnataka, according to media reports.
The deal to acquire the unit, which is valued at over $600 million and employs over 10,000 people, is on the verge of being finalised, Bloomberg said.
The factory produces the iPhone 14 model.
The Tatas will first honour Wistron’s contract with Apple, under which they will ship$1.8 billion worth of iPhones by March 2024.
It will also triple the workforce by next year.
Tata Electronics, part of the $122 billion conglomerate, is not new to the iPhone ecosystem: its plant at Hosur, Tamil Nadu, makes the cases and assembles some of the mechanical components after which it is reportedly shipped to the final assembler.
While the Hosur unit makes the iPhone SE model, latest reports say the Tata group is looking at partially assembling the iPhone 15 which will be launched in August or September.
If the deal with Wistron is finalised by then, the possibility of the Tatas making the model is not being ruled out.
Apple has been looking to diversify its product base out of China, and the acquisition of the Wistron unit by the Tatas will add an Indian company to the list of iPhone suppliers such Foxconn and Pegatron of Taiwan.
India now accounts for around 7 per cent of the iPhones made by Apple, up from 1 per cent in 2021.
The Cupertino, California-based tech giant has been betting on India — evident from the opening of two outlets in the national capital and Mumbai in April in the presence of CEO Tim Cook.
Apple has set a goal of making 25 per cent of the iPhones from India at a later stage.