A Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) subsidiary has secured approval for subsidies from Indian authorities for spending and sales from its production base in the country under the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, the Indian Press Information Bureau said in a statement on Wednesday.
Foxconn Hon Hai Technology India Mega Development Pvt Ltd has been given the green light to receive about 3.57 billion rupees (US$43.1 million) for its spending and sales from Aug. 1 last year to March 21, the bureau said.
The unit of iPhone assembler Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) globally, is the first global mobile phone producer to be granted approval to receive subsidies under the PLI scheme, the bureau said.
Photo: Annabelle Chih, Reuters
The PLI scheme was launched by the Indian government in April 2020 to boost the country’s competitive edge in electronics production.
In addition to the Hon Hai unit, Padget Electronics Pvt Ltd, a wholly owned unit of Indian electronics maker Dixon Technologies Ltd, has also secured 583 million rupees, the statement said.
Approval for the subsidy application filed by the Hon Hai unit and another by Padget came from a committee organized by the Indian Ministry of Commerce and Industry’s Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and public policy think tank NITI Aayog, the statement said.
In late December last year, Hon Hai increased its investment in the Indian subsidiary by US$350 million, which industrial sources said was aimed at expanding the unit’s production at its plant in Chennai to roll out iPhone 13s.
Earlier this month, Hon Hai in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange said that it had further raised investment in the Indian subsidiary by injecting an additional US$500 million, which industrial sources believed would be spent on the Chennai plant to produce iPhone 14s, the latest Apple iPhone series.
The sources’ comments echoed Indian news reports in September that Apple would produce iPhone 14s in Chennai, implying that Hon Hai Precision Industry would be in charge of the rollouts at a time when domestic COVID-19 outbreaks in China have reduced production from the Chinese operations of the Taiwanese company and many other foreign entities.
Hon Hai Precision Industry has solid experience in producing iPhones in India, having manufactured the iPhone XR, the iPhone 11 and iPhone 12 in Chennai, the sources said.
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