Taiwan’s Wistron Corp (緯創) is partnering with India’s Optiemus Electronics to build products such as smartphones and laptops, a boost to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s push to make the nation an electronics manufacturing hub.
As part of the deal with contract manufacturer Wistron, Optiemus is to invest about US$200 million to ramp up electronics manufacturing in the next three to five years, the two companies said.
The partnership is expected to yield revenues of 380 billion rupees (US$5.12 billion) over five years for Optiemus, the company said, adding that it plans to hire about 11,000 workers for its two plants on the outskirts of New Delhi.
Photo copied by Chen Jo-chen, Taipei Times
It currently has a workforce of about 300.
“Wistron wants to grow its footprint in India, Optiemus wants to leverage the government initiatives [in electronics manufacturing] ... so it makes sense to come together from a win-win point of view,” said Optiemus managing director A. Gururaj, who once led Wistron in India.
The success of India’s electronics manufacturing sector is key to Modi’s ambition of turning the nation into the factory of the world.
In a bid to boost exports, Modi has announced production-linked incentive (PLI) programs that pay manufacturers for revenue from locally made goods.
Although foreign companies need to make phones and laptops above a certain value to get PLI benefits, there is no such threshold for Indian companies.
That means Wistron and Optiemus, which have won PLI approvals for smartphones and information technology products, can make cheaper products and still get government incentives.
“Optiemus is in very advanced discussions with a large global company to make smartphones,” said Gururaj, declining to name the client.
The Wistron-Optiemus partnership is also key to Wistron’s business ambitions in India, which have so far rested largely on Apple Inc, its key client in the nation.
Wistron entered India in 2015 by buying a minority equity stake in Optiemus in a partnership that assembled devices for other brands, including Taiwan’s HTC Corp (宏達電) and South Korea’s LG. Wistron has since sold its equity back to Optiemus.
Wistron in 2017 began assembling iPhones in a small plant in Bengaluru and has since expanded to a much bigger factory in Karnataka State’s Narasapura industrial area.
Worker discontent over unpaid wages led to a riot at the Naraspura factory late last year, leading Apple to put Wistron on probation.
“Wistron’s partnership with Optiemus will help it scale and diversify manufacturing in India to other products beyond smartphones and key client Apple, as well as assemble devices locally for other global clients,” said Neil Shah of Hong Kong-based technology analytics firm Counterpoint Research.
Apart from being a key Apple supplier, Wistron also makes laptops for Dell, Xiaomi Corp (小米) and Acer Inc (宏碁), as well as Intel-based servers.
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