Foxconn Technology Group has asked hundreds of Chinese engineers and technicians to return home from its iPhone factories in India, a move that is likely to hamper Apple Inc's plans to ramp up production in the country.
According to a Bloomberg report, a majority of Foxconn's Chinese staff deployed across iPhone plants in southern India were told to return two months ago. More than 300 workers have since left the plants, with support staff from Taiwan now overseeing the operations, people familiar with the details said.
The bulk of India-made iPhones are assembled at Foxconn's factory in southern India. Tata Group's electronics manufacturing arm, which bought Wistron Corp. and controls Pegatron Corp.'s operations, is also a key supplier.
There was no official statement from neither Foxconn nor Apple on the matter but earlier this year, Chinese officials verbally encouraged regulatory agencies and local governments to curb technology transfers and equipment exports to India and Southeast Asia, in a possible bid to prevent companies from shifting manufacturing elsewhere.
Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook earlier lauded the skill and expertise of Chinese assembly workers, highlighting it as the key reason for setting up the majority of Apple's production in the country.
The removal of Chinese staff from India is expected to slow down the training of local workforce as well as the transfer of manufacturing technology from China, likely raising production costs, the people cited above said.
"The extraction won't impact the quality of production in India, but it's likely to affect efficiency on the assembly line," one of them said, according to the report.
The developments also came at a time when Apple was planning to shift the entire assembly of iPhones sold in the US to India by early as next year. Apple has no smartphone production in the US - most of its iPhones are made in China while facilities in India produce around 40 million units per year (about 15% of Apple's annual output).
