Tata Group recently announced that the company is set to complete the takeover plan of Wistron's iPhone plant in Bengaluru by the end of April for US$600 million, as reported by the Commercial Daily on April 11. Upon takeover, the plant - which comprises of eight product lines - will become India's first homegrown production line for Apple products, currently manufacturing iPhone 12 and iPhone 14 models with plans to produce iPhone 15 later this year. This comes at a time when Apple announced its plan to shift 25% global production to India amidst the U.S.-China trade conflict. Thus far, three Taiwanese companies, Wistron, Pegatron, and Foxconn, have smartphone assembly plants in India. While Wistron is fading out of iPhone business in India, Foxconn and Pegatron are increasing their production lines in India. Nevertheless, this plant is Wistron's only Apple's product line in India. The takeover may require some employees to leave, including approximately 2,000 factory workers and 400 mid-level executives.
Due to the new product rollouts, global iPhones shipment volume reached 72.7 million units in the fourth quarter of 2022, up 43.4% sequentially but down 12.2% year-on-year, according to MIC (Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute). MIC further predicted that iPhones shipment volume in the first and second quarter of 2023 will reach 46.7 million and 45.8 million units, respectively. Established in 1987, MIC is a division of III (Institute for Information Industry), a major government think tank, and one of the leading IT research institutes in Taiwan.