Wistron, Foxconn plan to invest $1bn in India

Global electronics contract manufacturers Wistron and Foxconn plan to invest a combined $1 billion (Rs 7,500 crore) over five years to expand their production facilities in India. Wistron is expected to begin manufacturing iPhone 8 in the country, while Foxconn's plans are to support higher levels of manufacturing of existing clients such as Xiaomi and Nokia phones. Between the two Taiwanese companies, Wistron has applied to the government to invest $0.7 billion (Rs 5,000 crore) and Foxconn $0.35 billion (Rs 2,500 crore) under an incentive package that will likely give these companies benefits of $140 million (Rs 1,000 crore) and $70 million (Rs 500 crore), respectively. The government has so far approved as many as 193 of the 421 applications received under the modified incentive package scheme (M-SIPS), of which 144 have started incurring investments totalling $1.3 billion (Rs 9,252 crore). Wistron is looking to move some of its PC, Internet of Things, medical and cloud service businesses to India. The company has two plants near Bengaluru that assemble Apple's iPhone SE and iPhone 6S devices for sale in India. The company estimated in its proposal that the investment would provide employment to over 10,000 people. Foxconn's application to invest $0.35 billion (Rs 2,500 crore) came in December.