Foxconn Asks Chinese Staff At iPhone Plants In India To Return Home: Report

News18

5 days ago

Last Updated:
Foxconn asked hundreds of Chinese engineers in India's iPhone factories to return home.
Foxconn Technology Group asked hundreds of Chinese engineers and technicians working in India's iPhone factories to return home, financial news agency Bloomberg said in a report. The report said that the move will not impact the quality of production.
The move comes at a time when Apple faces pressure from the US and the China over its ambitions to scale up iPhone manufacturing in India.
The Bloomberg report said that the iPhone maker is preparing to ramp up production of the new iPhone 17 with its manufacturing partners in India and Foxconn is in the process of building a new iPhone plant in southern India.
The report said that a majority of Foxconn's Chinese staff at iPhone plants in southern India have been told to fly back. The move began about two months ago, the report said. It further added that 300 Chinese workers have left and mostly Taiwanese support staff remain in India.
The Chinese government earlier in 2025 encouraged regulatory agencies and local governments to curb technology transfers and equipment exports to India and Southeast Asia. China is increasingly anxious seeing companies from shifting manufacturing elsewhere and is trying to prevent it.
The report said industry watchers see the move a response to China's growing reluctance to let skilled labour and critical tech leave the country.
The move aligns with recent steps by Beijing to tighten its grip on strategic resources, from rare earth exports to specialised manufacturing talent, as countries like India and Vietnam emerge as attractive alternatives in global tech supply chains.
India, which only started mass-producing iPhones four years ago, now accounts for about 20 percent of Apple's global output. Much of that scale-up has relied on Chinese managers who were deployed by Foxconn to train Indian teams.
The US-China supply chain decoupling began during Donald Trump's first term, when Apple started shifting some gadget assembly to India and Vietnam. Trump's new tariff plans have only accelerated diversification. China, in turn, has retaliated by limiting the export of rare minerals, skilled labour, and high-end manufacturing equipment.
Trump has also taken aim at Apple's India plans, arguing that iPhones for American consumers should be made within the US. But with American labour costs remaining high and China unwilling to allow its engineers to help set up operations abroad, assembling iPhones in the US is not yet viable.
Foxconn continues to manufacture most iPhones in China, but its Indian expansion has been one of the most ambitious shifts in Apple's global production playbook.