Our Bureau
Bengaluru
There have been major developments in the iPhone factories of Foxconn in India. The Taiwanese Technology Group has told most of its Chinese engineers and technicians to return home from the factories in India. This decision however would heavily impact Apple’s plan to increase the production of its products in India.
A report from Bloomberg has stated that the Taiwanese giant has asked all of its Chinese staff that were deployed in the iPhone factories in India to return back to their homes. The move is not a recent one though and the workers were told to move back 2 months ago. It is being reported that more than 300 employees have already left the plants and now the operations are overseen by the support staff from Taiwan.
Both Apple and Foxconn have still not given out an official statement on the situation as of now. This move can also be a cause of concern for Apple as the removal of Chinese employees could lead to a rise in production cost for them.
The removal of the staff means the training of local staff will be getting hampered and slowed down while also impacting the transfer of manufacturing technology from China. An official stated, “The extraction won’t impact the quality of production in India, but it’s likely to affect efficiency on the assembly line.”
This has also happened when Apple was looking to ramp up the production in India and shift the entire assembly of iPhones sold in the United States to India. This production change was powered on the back of Foxconn as the bulk of India-made iPhones are assembled at Foxconn’s factory in southern India. Other than them Tata Group’s electronics manufacturing arm is also a key supplier for Apple.
