Wistron Set to Open a Second Apple Plant in India

Taiwan based original design manufacturer Wistron Corp (3231: TW) will be opening a new plant in southern India, where it will be assembling printed circuit boards (PCBs) for iPhones.

This was revealed on Monday by sources directly concerned with the matter additionally they said, iPhone 7 and 8 will also be produced at the new plant some of them made for export.

The firm cites the rising demand of Apple’s Inc. (AAPL) products in the world’s second biggest smartphone market as the main reason behind the new plant.

A PCB is where key components like memory, wireless chip sets and processors are placed, it’s also commonly referred to as the motherboard. Smartphone’ makers say PCBs amount to about 50% of the total production cost of a smartphone.

The new plant is expected to kick off its operations in April, it will be located 65 km (40 miles) from Bengaluru and it will be producing over 8 million smartphones in a year.

Back in 2018, Wistron presented a $422.12 million (30 billion rupee) investment proposal to the Karnataka state government in India. The firm says the new plant will be part and parcel of this 2018 investment proposal.

Foxconn, currently Wistron’s fiercest competitor started producing iPhones and assembling PCB’s in India last year.

These firms resulted to producing Apple and its components in India after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration imposed levies and increased import taxes on smartphones components. The prime minister maintained the move was aimed at boosting local production and job creation.