On July 11, Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn said it had decided to withdraw from its $19.5 billion semiconductor joint venture with Indian conglomerate Vedanta. The two companies had signed an agreement in September last year to set up a display and semiconductor manufacturing facility in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat. This anticlimactic development in Foxconn’s India expansion comes as a major setback for the country’s ambitions to become a hub for semiconductor manufacturing.
Foxconn manufactures electronics for global companies including Apple, Google, and HP. It had been increasing production at its existing units in India, and had invested in two new local factories, with plans to diversify into electric vehicle parts production and display manufacturing.
This timeline captures Foxconn’s transformative journey in India over the past year.
June 2022
Foxconn Chairman and CEO Young Liu meets Prime Minister Narendra Modi
Foxconn’s chief visits India and meets Modi for the first time in June 2022. The two reportedly discuss expansion plans for electronics and EV manufacturing.
Foxconn in India 2021–22
| Number of factories | 2 (Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh) |
| Number of India visits by Liu | 1 |
| Number of full-time and contract employees | 28,470 |
September 2022
Foxconn wants a semiconductor factory in Gujarat
At a public event in Modi’s home state of Gujarat, Foxconn and Vedanta announce a joint venture to set up a display and semiconductor manufacturing facility. The deal would benefit from India’s $10 billion incentive plan for those investing in semiconductor manufacturing.
October 2022
Tamil Nadu executives woo Foxconn
Top bureaucrats from Tamil Nadu meet Liu at Foxconn’s headquarters in Taiwan to discuss expansion plans for its three existing factories in the southern Indian state.
November 2022
Foxconn to quadruple India workforce
Local news reports cite Indian government sources as saying that Foxconn plans to quadruple its workforce at its iPhone plant in Chennai to 70,000 over the next two years.
December 2022
Foxconn gets incentivized
Foxconn becomes the first foreign company to receive a $43.2 million incentive for mobile manufacturing from the Indian government. The company also invests $500 million in its India business.
February 2023
The Karnataka-Foxconn connection
Officials from another southern Indian state, Karnataka, meet Liu at Foxconn’s headquarters in Taiwan to discuss investment plans. Karnataka passes a controversial law to extend factories’ work schedules from nine to 12 hours per day, with a 48-hour weekly cap. Reports say Foxconn is exploring partnerships with the Indian government to upskill the local workforce to fuel its chip ambitions.
“It is necessary for us to continue to expand assembly and component operations in India. We see that more and more suppliers are investing in establishing plants in India and believe that this will become more prominent as time goes on.”
Chairman Young Liu, Foxconn earnings call
March 2023
Liu meets Modi to go over semiconductors
Liu meets Modi in New Delhi and discusses electronics and semiconductor manufacturing plans. Foxconn signs a memorandum of understanding to set up a new manufacturing facility in Karnataka.
April 2023
Apple retail stores come to India
Apple CEO Tim Cook visits India to open the company’s first two retail stores on the back of record iPhone exports from the country, enabled by suppliers such as Foxconn and Wistron. India’s iPhone production has tripled since 2022, reaching $7 billion.
May 2023
New Foxconn facility in Telangana
Another southern state, Telangana, announces a $500 million investment by Foxconn to set up a manufacturing facility.
June 2023
Karnataka’s first iPhone planned for 2024
The Karnataka government reportedly promises to hand over 1,214,056 square meters of land to Foxconn by July to build an iPhone assembly plant. The initiative, nicknamed “Project Elephant,” is expected to see an investment of $1.7 billion and generate 50,000 jobs. The proposed annual production capacity of the plant is 20 million smartphones.
For the first time, Foxconn explicitly says it wants to expand EV production in India, to become the “Android ecosystem for EV.”
Foxconn in India now
| Number of proposed factories | 4 (Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Telangana) |
| Number of India visits by Liu | 2 |
| Expected number of full-time and contract employees | 145,000 |
July 2023
Chip ambitions come crashing down
The Foxconn-Vedanta joint venture hits a roadblock as talks to rope in European chipmaker STMicroelectronics proceed slowly, according to Reuters. On July 10, Foxconn withdraws from the joint venture. A day later, Foxconn says it’s applying for the $10 billion semiconductor incentive alone.
The road ahead
Business brings Taiwan closer to India
Taipei Economic and Cultural Center (TECC), the de facto embassy in India, has said it will open a new office in Mumbai, which will work closely with TECC in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. This development comes after the southern Indian state tripled its electronics exports to $5.37 billion in July, up from $1.86 billion in the 2022 financial year — largely enabled by accelerated iPhone production at Foxconn’s factories, and those of Apple’s other Taiwanese contract manufacturer Pegatron.
