Tata Group owes the Infiniti Retail that is planning to run the Croma chain of stores. Tata Group plans to launch 100 stores across the country that will only sell Apple products. The Economic Times newspaper spreads awareness of the matter.
Last month, it was detected that the group was creating plans to buy Wistron’s only manufacturing facility in India for up to Rs. 5,000 crores, citing people familiar with the discussions.
If it fails to crack a deal of purchasing the facility in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, Tata could consider a joint venture with Taiwan’s Wistron. Taiwan’s Wistron is one of Apple’s top vendors in India.
Tata Electronics, a unit of salt-to-software conglomerate Tata Group, is already supplying components to Apple from its Hosur unit in Tamil Nadu, which neighbours Karnataka.
According to the report of Bloomberg, it has been reported that in September, Tata was in talks with Wistron as a motive to establish a joint venture to assemble iPhones in India.
Currently, iPhones are assembled in India by at least three of Apple’s global suppliers – Wistron in Karnataka, Foxconn in Karnataka, and Pegatron in Tamil Nadu.
Earlier this month, Apple’s Taiwanese contract manufacturer Pegatron consistently began to assemble the new iPhone 14 in India. Both Foxconn and Pegatron make the production of Apple’s latest iPhone 14 handset. The former started gathering the smartphone in September.
The headquarter of Apple is in Cupertino, California has bet big on India since it began iPhone assembly in the country in 2017 via Wistron and later with Foxconn, in line with the Indian government’s push for local manufacturing.
As per the analysis made by J.P. Morgan, it has been estimated that Apple may complete one out of four iPhones in India by 2025. The tech giant plans to move some production away from China amid mounting geopolitical tensions and strict COVID-19 lockdowns.