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[Global Times reporter Ni Haoyuan Jirong, Global Times special correspondent Chen Lifei] According to Taiwan's China Times Electronics News on the 19th, Liu Yangwei, chairman of Taiwan's electronics OEM giant Foxconn Technology Group, visited India last week. When visiting Foxconn's factory in Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu, India, in response to the factory's accusation that it refused married women to work in iPhone assembly, he said that Foxconn's recruitment is not gender-specific, and female employees account for a large proportion here, and said that "married women have made great contributions to our efforts here." During this period, Foxconn also announced new investment plans in India. Reuters previously stated that a survey showed that Foxconn "systematically discriminated" against married women in India. However, an investigation conducted by the Indian central government later showed that the above situation did not exist in Foxconn's Indian factories. Taiwanese media said that this statement was Liu Yangwei's first public response to relevant reports.

Data map: On July 12, 2019, in Tamil Nadu, India, employees were having a meal in the cafeteria of a mobile phone factory under Foxconn Technology Co., Ltd. (Visual China)

Indian government sets up investigation team

A Reuters investigation published in June showed that Foxconn "systematically excludes married women from work at its main iPhone assembly plant in India" on the grounds that married women have greater family responsibilities than unmarried women. Since then, the Indian government has asked Tamil Nadu to provide a detailed report. The Indian Ministry of Labor said that Indian law clearly stipulates that companies must not discriminate on gender when recruiting male and female workers. Foxconn refuted India's "allegation of employment discrimination based on marital status" in a statement. The Indian government immediately set up a five-member team to investigate. According to India's Mint newspaper, the team visited the Foxconn factory near Chennai and issued a report saying that "there is no evidence that the company discriminates against married women."

Foxconn has accelerated the expansion of Apple's supply chain in India in recent years, producing iPhones and other products, and plans to enter AirPods and chip manufacturing. According to the Press Trust of India, Liu Yangwei said in an interview that he is studying plans to set up a battery energy storage system subsidiary in India. Liu Yangwei said that Foxconn has invested more than $10 billion in India so far and plans to increase investment next year. Taiwan media "Central News Agency" said that Indian Prime Minister Modi posted on the social platform X on the 15th that he discussed Foxconn's investment plans in multiple states in India during his meeting with Liu Yangwei.

Foxconn's ups and downs in India

Liu Xiaoxue, deputy director of the South Asia Research Center of the Institute of Asia-Pacific and Global Strategy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on the 19th that there are two main reasons behind Foxconn's insistence on investing and setting up factories in India. One is the need to be close to the market and reduce production costs. Liu Xiaoxue said that India is the world's most populous country, and its market potential is relatively attractive to foreign investment. And close production to the market can reduce costs and improve efficiency, which is an objective need of economic laws. Second, in the context of some Western countries advocating "de-risking" and implementing trade protection, Foxconn insists on setting up factories in India to avoid being suppressed by India due to the widening trade imbalance, and at the same time hopes to avoid the risks of some Western countries abusing tariff measures (against China).

Taiwan's Commercial Times said that in recent years, Apple has gradually transferred some of its mobile phone production lines in Asia to India and Southeast Asian countries, among which India is the most promising. However, many media on the island have expressed concerns about Foxconn's future investment in India. According to a previous report by India's Business Standard, Foxconn tested the Indian market as early as 2008, but it was not until 2017 that it moved the iPhone assembly line into India and began producing the latest Apple products in India in 2020.

According to some media reports, Foxconn's investment in India has suffered setbacks in recent years. In July 2023, Foxconn announced its withdrawal from a $19.5 billion investment project in cooperation with Indian oil giant Vedanta, which originally planned to build a chip manufacturing plant in India. Hon Hai headquarters said in a statement that both parties recognized that the project was not progressing fast enough, "we were unable to successfully overcome some challenging gaps, and there were external issues unrelated to the project." The Wall Street Journal reported in December last year that Apple's goal is to exceed 50 million iPhones per year in India in the next two to three years, equivalent to 25% of global iPhone shipments in 2022. But in 2022, India's iPhone production ultimately accounted for only 6% of global shipments. Taiwan's "Commercial Times" said that in addition to backward infrastructure, the strong power of Indian trade unions and obstruction of labor reforms also made it difficult for local factories to improve production efficiency. The report mentioned that Foxconn has invested huge capital in building factories in India in recent years and has not yet recovered it.

New Adjustments

Many Taiwanese media outlets have recently reported on Foxconn's recruitment in Henan. Taiwan's United News Network reported this month that Hon Hai Group announced that Foxconn has signed a cooperation agreement with the Henan Provincial Government to invest 1 billion yuan in Zhengzhou to build a new business headquarters building and seven centers to promote electric vehicle, energy storage battery, digital health and robotics industries.

Hong Kong's "Asia Weekly" published an article saying that Foxconn's "return" is by no means accidental, and the root cause behind India and Vietnam's "falling out of favor" lies in the quality of workers, the industrial chain and infrastructure construction. It is reported that Apple's new iPhone 16 will still be assembled in China. Because Indian workers are not as well educated as Chinese workers, the yield rate of their assembled iPhone 15 is only half. According to reports, an incomplete supply chain is another major reason for Foxconn's adjustment. Although labor costs are lower than in China, many parts needed by factories in Vietnam and India still have to be imported from China, and expensive transportation costs have increased the total cost. The lack of infrastructure has become the "last straw that broke the camel's back." India and Vietnam have backward power infrastructure and face power restrictions during peak periods of power production in factories.

Liu Xiaoxue said that as a world manufacturing base, China has a complete industrial chain, a complete supporting system, high-quality workers, and complete and stable base facilities and energy security such as electricity and water. It is a very mature production base for global multinational companies. In contrast, the Indian market has a huge demographic dividend. Multinational companies including Foxconn invest in and set up factories in India mainly for future development. However, in this process, they may have to bear various risks brought about by many uncertainties.