Foxconn begins smartphone production in India

Taiwanese Foxconn has started manufacturing smartphones in India. The company plans to open a total of 12 new factories in the Asian country by 2020, providing jobs for a million people.

The news came out in an interview with Foxconn CEO Terry Gou by ndtv. Foxconn’s first factory has now opened in the southeast of the country. Gou states that he wants to open factories in rural areas, in order to transform the environment with jobs and infrastructure. At the moment, he thinks that infrastructure is still lacking. “Power is a problem. If the power goes out, the whole factory comes to a standstill. Electricity, water, skilled workers, all those problems still have to be solved.”

Gou says he needs the approval of the Indian government to open all the factories and create the jobs. However, it looks like Foxconn will get that acclaim, as India launched another initiative last year called Make in India. That is precisely aimed at encouraging companies to produce their products in India. It is not yet officially known who Foxconn will produce in India, but an anonymous source told Bloomberg that it would be Xiaomi and InFocus so far.

Foxconn is the brand name of Hon Hai, which is headquartered in Taiwan and has more than one million employees worldwide. The manufacturer makes hardware for numerous computer and smartphone companies and was regularly in negative news due to poor working conditions, which even led to suicide.