India is considering a plan to offer subsidized loans to mobile handset manufacturers in a bid to attract Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co’s suppliers to open factories in the nation, a government official said.
The proposals by the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, which include offering interest subsidy on local borrowing by manufacturers, might form part of the federal budget to be unveiled on Feb. 1, the official said, asking not to be identified.
They also include setting up industrial zones equipped with taxation and customs clearance, along with infrastructure, such as roads, power and water supply, the official said.
India plans to make US$190 billion of mobile phones by 2025 from US$24 billion now, the official said.
Two calls made to the spokesman of the ministry remained unanswered.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, which is under pressure to bring down a jobless rate that is the highest in 45 years, wants to attract overseas component makers and help boost the share of manufacturing in Asia’s third-largest economy to a quarter of the nation’s GDP.
Modi’s flagship “Make in India” program has been foundering, as poor road and port facilities deter investors.
There has been some success. Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), known internationally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), the largest assembler of Apple handsets, is ramping up manufacturing of iPhones in India.
It already has two factories in the southern Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, where it makes devices for Xiaomi Corp (小米) and Nokia Oyj.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by