iPhone maker sends India-based Chinese employees home Bloomberg
iPhone manufacturer Foxconn has sent more than 300 Chinese engineers and technicians back home from its factories in India, a Bloomberg report said on Thursday.
The bulk of the Taiwanese electronics manufacturer's Chinese staff at iPhone plants in southern India were told to leave, in a move that began about two months ago, the outlet said, citing people familiar with the matter. At the moment, only support staff from Taiwan are in India, the report said.
The reason for Foxconn's decision to send the employees back is unclear; however, it comes amid reports that Chinese officials verbally urged regulatory agencies and local governments to restrict technology transfers and equipment exports to India and Southeast Asia, the report said.
This move may be an attempt to discourage companies from shifting manufacturing operations away from China, according to industry watchers.
While Foxconn still makes most iPhones in China, it has gradually built sizable assembly operations in India in recent years. It had deployed a large number of experienced Chinese engineers in the country to help speed up its expansion. The sudden removal of these workers from India's manufacturing operations is likely to hinder the training of local employees and the transfer of manufacturing technology from China, potentially increasing production costs, the report said.
While the departure of Chinese workers is not expected to impact the quality of production in India, it may affect the efficiency of the assembly line, Bloomberg said. In May, the Taiwanese manufacturer said that it wouldinvest$1.5 billion in India in an attempt to mitigate potential American tariff risks in China. Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook has also confirmed a production shift to India. During the company's quarterly earnings call in May, he said, "the majority of iPhones sold in the US will have India as their country of origin."
(RT.com)
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
26 minutes ago
- Time of India
France urges tariff barriers to stop China from killing industry
French finance minister Eric Lombard said Europe must shore up its tariff barriers to counter Chinese imports that risk harming the continent's industrial economy. Europe has already taken action on steel and automobiles, but rules must be changed to allow the wider use of measures against imports from China, Lombard said. "In the world we are in today, we must protect our industry," Lombard said Saturday at a conference in Aix-en-Provence, France. "We must do it on all industrial segments, otherwise the Chinese policy that consists of having a production capacity of more than 50% global market share in each sector will kill our industry." China announced anti-dumping duties on European brandy on Friday while exempting major cognac makers that agreed to minimum price levels. The action followed the EU's decision in 2024 to levy duties as high as 45% on Chinese-made electric vehicles.
Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
Stringent framework finalised to ensure drones don't have Chinese parts
NEW DELHI: The Indian defence establishment has finalised a comprehensive stringent framework to ensure that drones being acquired from domestic private sector companies do not have Chinese components and electronics in them. The mechanism, with the requisite technical verification and evaluation methodologies, will be implemented in a couple of months to further strengthen the level of checks already put in place, which include more comprehensive certifications to be provided by drone-manufacturers. "The framework has been completed and is under approval. Once approved, thorough testing will be conducted to ensure our equipment is free from any security vulnerabilities," additional director general of the Army Design Bureau Major General C S Mann said. This has become imperative as the armed forces began acquiring a large number of drones amid the military confrontation with China over the last few years. Operation Sindoor against Pakistan, which saw intense cross-border hostilities from May 7 to 10, has further underlined the need for such a mechanism.
The Print
4 hours ago
- The Print
Lessons for Trump from Licence Raj as US tariffs loom & Foxconn's blow to India's iPhone ambitions
'The example of the Licence Raj suggests that damage from trade restrictions goes far beyond just losing benefits such as cheaper imports and new export markets. Restrictions allow new distortions to proliferate: companies devote their efforts to tilting the playing field in their favour, officials discover new ways to benefit at the public's expense and smugglers profit from breaking the law. All this has an insidious effect on the economy, politics and society, which runs far beyond the sizeable damage resulting from lower economic growth,' it reads. Licence Raj refers to the economic policies of the Indian government from 1951 to 1990. New Delhi: Donald Trump and India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru have next to nothing in common, but it'd be worth the US President's while to take note of the Licence Raj, as countries like India rush to negotiate trade deals with Trump before the US' global tariffs kick in on 9 July, according to The Economist. Sankalp Phartiyal, Debby Wu and Mark Gurman report in Bloomberg that, in a blow to India's iPhone ambitions, Foxconn has asked 'hundreds' of Chinese engineers and technicians to return from its iPhone factories in India. 'Foxconn's move follows the steps Beijing has taken to make it harder for technology, skilled labour and specialised equipment to leave China for manufacturing upstarts such as India. The South Asian nation and countries including Vietnam are trying to attract global tech companies, taking advantage of US-China tensions that are prompting firms to diversify their locations,' the report says. The Dalai Lama, ahead of his 90th birthday, outlined his succession plan amid a quest for modernisation and an 'authoritarian Beijing', report Mujib Mashal and Hari Kumar in The New York Times. 'Traditionally, the search for a new Dalai Lama begins only after the current one dies. Tibetan Buddhist leaders say they follow ancient customs of parsing mystical visions, clues left by the previous Dalai Lama and astrology to help narrow their search. In the past, search committees would travel around Tibet testing candidates to see if they showed any traits that could be deemed especially holy,' says the report. In The Guardian, Nishad Sanzagiri reviews Sam Dalrymple's Shattered Lands, which expands the lens through which the British empire is viewed. 'Among the most poignant moments in the book is a brief account of a Bible salesman from the Naga hills who volunteers to fight in the second world war. The Nagas are ethnically Tibeto-Burman peoples native to the borderlands of north-east India and north-west Myanmar, with distinct cultural traditions and a strong sense of nationhood that long predates these modern states. When asked if he is Indian or Burmese, the man replies, 'I am a Naga first, a Naga second, and a Naga last',' the review notes. BBC's Matthew Henry deconstructs newbie cricket captain Shubman Gill's performance in India's latest test series in England. 'The travelling India press pack is large and unrelenting and Gill struggled to sate them. The message was muddled. His batting in Birmingham 24 hours later was not,' he writes. (Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui) Also Read: 'No true escape' from the Indian heatwave & the 'allure' of the manufacturing bet
