Foxconn to conduct ‘ground-breaking’ ceremony in Telangana on May 15

Taiwanese contract manufacturing major Foxconn, which makes products for tech giant Apple, will hold a “ground-breaking” ceremony in Telangana on May 15, the southern state’s principal secretary of IT and Industries Jayesh Ranjan has told Moneycontrol, as the much publicised project begins to take shape.

A groundbreaking ceremony marks the beginning of construction work for a project or even a home.

The investment, which is expected to create 1 lakh jobs, will reportedly be the company’s biggest single outlay in India. Queries to Ranjan on the size of the investment, the products that Foxconn will make and other details went unanswered and the article will be updated when a response is received.

The May 15 event comes at a time when there has been a lot of buzz around Karnataka and Telangana governments announcing Foxconn’s “interest” in investing in their states.

A day after the iPhone-maker signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Telangana on March 2, the Karnataka government said that Foxconn would invest in the state and it had identified a 300-acre space for the company. Foxconn, however, said it had not “entered into any binding, definitive agreements” during its chairman Young Liu’s recent trip to India.

Liu, who was on his second visit to India, also met PM Narendra Modi, MeitY secretary Alkesh Kumar Sharma and his colleagues.

Liu, while speaking at inauguration of T-Works, a prototyping centre launched by the state government, said that working with Telangana would enable him to double the company’s revenue to $400 billon over the next four years.

“Telangana gave me this confidence, that working in the State, I will, very likely, double the revenue of Foxconn,” Liu said. Apple’s iPhone supplier Foxconn, also known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, reported unaudited revenue of $215.84 billion in 2022.

“I have to emphasise that without speed it (doubling revenue) is not possible. But with Telangana’s speed, it is very possible,” Liu said.

“I would like to take this opportunity to encourage all of you that with the effort that government has put into the State; with all this effort, try to explore this investment, and do it in a speedy way, and I believe you can make it.”

Foxconn, along with other Apple contract manufacturers Wistron and Pegatron, are ramping up their focus on India in the wake of China’s zero-COVID policy and other such measures. Global corporations are in the process of shifting supply chains away from China in order to insulate from any possible future shock. Moneycontrol