Though many players wanted to do it – large scale electronics
manufacturing in India, they could not make progress. Now I have no doubt of it becoming a reality after
reading this news piece - Adani to announce JV worth $5 billion with
iPhone maker Foxconn (Link: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/48343913.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst)
Adani has money and the Govt. connections. Foxconn being a
contract manufacturer for Apple’s products has the technical know-how and
access to market. A domestic market already exists in India. Now all pieces
come together.
Read into the news, you will know that India is the target
market for half of their intended production, while the rest would be exported
to Middle-east, Africa and Russia. It makes perfect business sense and India
would earn foreign exchange on the planned export of those 200 million phones
(when it becomes a reality). Some of the money we spend on oil, which goes to
Middle-east comes back to India, not just through remittances but as wage
earnings for those cell phones being made in India.
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| A Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, China |
The joint-venture intends to invest $5B through two
plants – one to be based in Karnataka and another in Gujarat. Real estate
investors – this is time to build insider connections and go hit the market. It
would pay-off nicely in the times to come.
While the new investments create jobs here, this has
potential to improve the macro economy of India. After oil and gold, it is
electronics which is a big item in our imports list. All our hundred crore+
people cannot to do without phones. They will replace it every few years too.
And many of them have expensive smartphones in their pockets. So when the new factory
starts producing those phones, it would reduce our import bills. And they are
planning to sell outside too – that increases exports. Reducing imports and
increasing exports at the same time can turn India from a trade deficit country
into a trade surplus country. Phew! When more details are available, I would
run the numbers and share it with you.
This would take few years to become a reality. But the
future looks more certain.
Great news for employment/real estate...& our politician.
ReplyDeleteTed talk. the power of time..interesting article...thanks for introducing us about TED.
Really it stir our curiosity....:-)
TED talk is wealth of info. Talkers are practitioners of their subject so the content will be of high quality. Good to know you liked it!
DeleteProvided they handle the JV well, it should give the right push to India's foray into manufacturing of electronic goods and help in reducing the imports of electronic goods.
ReplyDeleteRight. Foxconn is as ambitious, they would have wanted to go alone but the policy requirements and regulations will force them to go with a local player.
DeleteFoxconn does more of assembly and testing. Complex chips (memory and logic) are still made by other players such as TSMC, Samsung so learning what Foxconn does is not a challenge in the long term for Indian companies too.
So all in all I think JV will last no longer than 10 years but it would do help India greatly. After that Indian companies are more likely to on their own at least in assembly and testing. Mastering chip manufacturing takes many decades so that has to wait.