Tata Electronics takes on Foxconn in India's iPhone manufacturing

Tata Electronics is competing robustly with the Taiwanese firm in making iPhones, and this is opening up the market

It took Foxconn, the number one electronics manufacturer in the world, over two decades to build a dominant electronics business in India. So when Apple Inc chose three Taiwanese firms to make iPhones in India under the production linked incentive (PLI) scheme, it was Foxconn that pipped Wistron and Pegatron to grab the lion’s share of the business. 

That was in 2023. Now its preeminent position is being challenged by Tata Electronics, which became the first 

Indian company to make iPhones by acquiring 100 per cent stake in Wistron in November 2023.  

 In these three years it has either closed in on or matched the Taiwanese in iPhone assembly on key parameters — whether it is exports, production value or direct employment. 

It is also betting big on semiconductors, with a ₹1.18 trillion investment in building a fab and an ATMP (assembly, testing, marking, packaging) and OSAT (outsourced semiconductor assembly and testing) plant, Tatas are expected to overtake Foxconn both in terms of overall investments as well as revenue from the country in the next few years, according to Tatas’ plans. 

The Taiwanese company on the other hand decided to walk out of its ₹1.54 trillion fab plant joint venture with Vedanta, moderating its aggressive moves in semicons by taking equity in setting up an ATMP plant in a JV with HCL, in which the two will together invest ₹3,700 crore.  

Queries to Foxconn on the story did not elicit a response while Tata Electronics said it would not like to comment.   Tata foray

 

In the PLI period of FY22-26, according to data given by vendors to the government, Tata Electronics has overtaken Foxconn in terms of the value of iPhones exported, hitting $26.3 billion compared with Foxconn’s $25.6 billion.   

The gap between the two in terms of their share of overall iPhone production in this period (domestic and exports) has also narrowed — Foxconn with a 54 per cent share between FY22 and FY26 is slightly ahead of Tatas, who have the rest of the market in what is now a duopoly.  

In terms of direct employment too the gap is closing — Foxconn has 69,000 direct employees currently with Tatas at 62,000. In FY23, Foxconn was far ahead with 40,000 employees compared with only 19,000 for the Tatas. 

Some factors 

Geopolitical issues helped Tata grow. When the Galwan border clashes erupted between India and China in 2022, Apple Inc was forced to rethink its earlier strategy of bringing in its Chinese supply chain to India. A change in the Indian policy made it near-impossible for Chinese companies to get clearance to set up operations in India on their own or even in a JV.  As a result, the Cupertino-headquartered company aggressively started scouting for home-grown and non- Chinese vendors.  

Tatas were first on the list. 

Senior executives who were part of the process say that Apple Inc did something it had not done in China – provide technology support and fly down specialists to support the Tatas from its global Apple ecosystem, to tide over the initial challenges as the group had limited experience in this sector. 

Said a senior executive who has been involved with their vendors: “Apple Inc had never done such a thing in China where they had established suppliers with large- scale operations. In India it had to hand-hold its new vendor – for instance, in the case of Tatas, who started by making the outer casings for iPhones, it ensured that their rejection rates became minimal which took two years to accomplish. Tatas are now exporting the casings to China. 

Tatas had entered the mobile space through acquisitions, beginning with Wistron, where the entire Taiwanese team, which had the expertise, soon left. So Apple had to chip in with support. In the case of Pegatron, in which Tatas bought a 60 per cent equity, however, some of the key Taiwanese personnel have stayed back to help in the transition. 

Wistron was a key acquisition — it helped the Tatas to increase their production value-share of iPhone assembly from 26 per cent to 44 per cent in one go just after acquiring Wistron  in 2024.  

For its first greenfield plant — in Hosur — the Tatas have had to go on their own with Apple Inc support .  

Foxconn’s strengths and gaps 

To be fair however, Foxconn is still far ahead in terms of the revenue generated from India — while the company does not give country-wise break-up, analysts and industry experts say that its domestic revenue is $15 billion-20 billion a year, which translates into around 6-7 per cent of its 2025 global revenue of $269 billion.   

Tata Electronics, which came in much later than Foxconn, has catapulted to become the largest home grown player in electronics, with revenue growing from ₹400 crore three years ago to ₹66,001 crore in FY25. 

This gap could narrow with Tatas’ big play in semiconductors. Already they are ahead of Foxconn in investments being undertaken and committed, which  has hit ₹1.26 trillion – largely because of their fab and ATMP plants.  

In comparison, Foxconn’s overall Indian investments and commitment is far lower at ₹36,000 crore — because it withdrew from the fab plant joint venture. 

In revenue, Tata Electronics has publicly stated that it aims to hit $30 billion in the next five years. 

But don’t underestimate Foxconn. The company has seen a dramatic shift in its global strategy — from dominating the low-margin mobile assembly business to building servers for big companies like Nvidia and others, leveraging burgeoning data centres across the world. 

The future 

The diversification has worked for Foxconn — as much as 40 per cent of its global revenue now comes from servers and IT hardware. It is the one business that Foxconn says it wants to bring to India, where only a few companies make servers despite a huge demand. That could again change the game. 

Apple Inc also chose Foxconn, rather than China’s Luxshare, to make AirPods in India — its third manufacturing destination after China and Vietnam. Although production started only in April last year, Foxconn has already wrested the global production share from China and Vietnam, going up from 1 per cent in CY25 to 4 per cent in Q1CY26.    

However, many of the public announcements by the top brass in Foxconn have not been translated to action on the ground. For instance, three years ago, Foxconn chairman Young Lui announced that the company will bring in its electric vehicle assembly business in India  soon— and make them just like phones — but the plan never took off.  

In November 2024, there were talks to set up the second largest battery energy storage system facility in Tamil Nadu, but the project is still under discussion.    

The company also, through another subsidiary, tried to assemble phones for non-apple players in India but after Xiaomi, it is now pivoting away from assembling mobiles and manufacturing electronics.  

It has been selected under India’s electronics components and manufacturing scheme for incentives to develop manufacturing capabilities for capital equipment and machinery.   

With a production value of $70 billion for iPhones made in the five-year PLI period, one out of every four iPhones in the world is now made in India.  

Even if Apple Inc is able to maintain its FY26 production levels at $28 billion, the iPhone production value achieved in 

the five years of PLI could double in just three years.  

That is a large market for both Tatas and Foxconn to fight for.