Alphabet Inc’s Google is scouting for suppliers in India to assemble its Pixel smartphones as it borrows from Apple Inc’s playbook of diversifying beyond China.
Google has initiated early conversations with companies including homegrown Lava International Ltd and Dixon Technologies India Ltd, as well as Foxconn Technology Group’s (富士康科技集團) Indian unit Bharat FIH, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named as the matter is private.
Google would be the latest global technology player to move production to India. The potential partners it is talking to have won Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s production-linked financial incentives.
Photo: AP
Apple has used the program to widen its supplier base in India and tripled iPhone output to more than US$7 billion in the fiscal year through March.
Modi has been pitching India as an alternative manufacturing hub, as more companies are becoming wary of the risks of depending on China after its harsh COVID-19 lockdowns and amid its trade dispute with Washington. Modi is scheduled to visit the US this week where his delegation is expected to hold talks on topics including a removal of tech trade barriers between the two countries.
Last month, Indian Minister of Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw met with Google CEO Sundar Pichai at the company’s headquarters in Mountain View, California, for a conversation that revolved around Modi’s local manufacturing drive and India’s state-backed technology push.
Key Google executives who visited India this month for the partnership talks included Ana Corrales, operating chief of its consumer hardware arm, and Maggie Wei, a senior director of global sustaining product operations, the people said.
Representatives for Lava, Dixon, Google and Foxconn did not respond to requests for comment.
Google built about 9 million Pixel smartphones last year, Counterpoint Research said, and the discussions in India underscore its plans to move production beyond China and Vietnam.
The Pixel is among the most sophisticated smartphones, and Google uses its flagship hardware product to showcase what its Android operating system and apps are capable of when optimized.
India is a key growth market for Google’s services, but the company has largely watched from the sidelines as cheaper Chinese phones have dominated the region.
Local assembly could help drive up Pixel sales, and if the phone effort is successful, Google could also move production of other hardware such as speakers to India, the people said.
However, there is no certainty that Google’s talks would result in a deal, the people said.
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