Taiwanese makers give priority to stability in India production

Wistron, which has qualified for Production Linked Incentives (PLI) from the Indian government, is focusing its operation in India on stability over volume, according to company sources.

Wistron expects its third manufacturing plant in India to complete by the end of the third quarter. The plant will poduce smartphones and IoT devices.

Industry sources indicated that Taiwanese ODMs have high expectations for the huge market of India, whose policy of cutting reliance on China has attracted companies to set up manufacturing locations there. However, they are bound to experience some serious culture shock and confusion over local regulations in India more than in China.

The Indian government plans to build its PC supply chain through the PLI scheme introduced earlier in 2021 and offers a total of US$1 billion to encourage manufacturing of electronics in India. Foxconn, Dell and Flex have also qualified for PLI.

Jeff Lin, president and CEO of Wistron Technologies, said this year’s production of PCs in India has had to be delayed due to COVID, but they will continue to communicate and try to acommondate clients’ demand.

David Shen, president of Wistron Smart Devices, said India’s supply chain still has plenty of room to improve, and is not working as fast and smooth as China’s, so they are taking one step at a time and focusing on stability over volume.

Billy Ho, president of Mitac, described production in India as going on “slowly but surely.” Mitac now manufactures and assembles server motherboards in India through its partner, Infopower Technologies, who also works under PLI.

Wistron’s third manufacturing plant is projected to go into mass production by the end of the year at the earliest. While raising capacity in India, Malaysia, Vietnam and Taiwan, China is still Wistron’s biggest production base. DigiTimes Asia