Taiwanese electronics contract manufacturer Foxconn, currently present in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, is planning to invest approx. Rs 1,500 crore to set up new production lines to manufacture select iPhone models in its Sriperumbudur factory near Chennai.
According to media reports, the project titled Fruit has been in progress for almost a year. Presently, Apple iPhone 6S and iPhone SE are manufactured by another Taiwanese phone maker Wistron in Bengaluru in Karnataka.
Foxconn is expected to announce the expansion plans deal on January 24, when the state will unveil new investments in Tamil Nadu during the second Global Investors Meet scheduled in January 2019.
Earlier, Foxconn utilised its Sriperumbudur unit to bring on-board component manufacturers who could supplement the phone assembly ecosystem. The company also manufactures phones for Chinese brand Xiaomi among other products from its factory.
The expansion of the Foxconn will bring iPhone manufacture to Tamil Nadu and will boost Tamil Nadu as the national manufacturing platform.
With exponential growth in Services, App Store purchases and device sales, Apple in November reported $62.9 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter for 2018, ending with $237.1 billion in cash on hand.
The company sold 46,889 iPhones (as compared to 41,300 units in fiscal Q3), 9,699 iPads and 5,299 Macs in the fiscal fourth quarter. The revenue was up 20 per cent from the year-ago quarter while international sales accounted for 61 per cent of the quarter's revenue.
Services revenue reached an all-time high of $10 billion from $7.9 billion in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2017 representing an increase of 27 per cent.
