It has tried to negotiate with Apple for higher margins, but being a smaller player as compared to Foxconn and Pegatron globally, it did not have the necessary leverage,” said an executive. “Wistron has not been able to make any money from the Apple business in India. With the company having stopped iPhone assembly in China after selling its Kunshan unit to Luxshare in 2020, the India business became too small for it to focus on. The company is in the process of selling its iPhone assembly unit in Kolar, near Bengaluru Įmployees and industry executives told ET that Wistron had been contemplating an exit as it didn’t see long-term profitability in being a mere assembler of the final product
India’s Economic Times reports that Wistron has now ended its iPhone contract. Foxconn and Pegatron later set up their own Indian iPhone plants, and by last year even the latest flagship models were being made in the country.Ī report last year suggested that a quarter of all iPhones could be made in India by 2025, and a later one indicated that this could rise to half of all iPhones by 2027. Apple started slowly, giving Wistron a contract to make the original iPhone SE in the country.
India is seen as Apple’s main hope when it comes to relocating production outside of China. The COVID-19-related disruption was estimated to have cost the company a billion dollars per week. The need for Apple to lessen its dependence on China as a manufacturing center has been clear for many years, but the impact of the pandemic at the world’s biggest iPhone assembly plant really underlined the problem. The news comes at a time when the Cupertino company is moving more and more of its iPhone production from China to India … Background IPhone maker Wistron – which was the first company to produce iPhones in India – has exited the business, saying that Apple’s tough negotiations on price meant the company was unable to make a profit.
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