Foxconn’s Manufacturing Expansion in India Is Straight Out of Its China Playbook

Foxconn, in 2025, focused on expanding its India manufacturing footprint, which is said to follow the same playbook the company implemented in China. The Taiwanese Hon Hai Technology Group is the world's largest contract manufacturer, and it handles assembly of most of Apple's iPhone and other devices. With its planned expansion of iPhone manufacturing in India, the company's India unit, Yuzhan Technology India, has announced an investment of $1.5 billion (roughly Rs. 13,500 crore) to expand operations. But it appears that the expansion goes beyond adding assembly lines.

Is Foxconn Mimicking China's Factory-City Project in India?

China is known for its disciplined industrial setup, where large industrial campuses not only create massive production setups and factories, but also support the needs of the workers. These campuses offer housing, hospitals, shopping areas, schools, and more. China also segregates its factories based on related parts and components in different regions, creating massive cities that are dedicated to the factories and those who work in them.

This kind of setup is not seen in other countries due to the resource-intensive requirements for land, capital, and strategic execution. In both Western countries and developing third-world countries, factories and industries are seen in isolated setups, usually located on the outskirts of a city, so that the city can support the workers.

But it seems Foxconn is about to change that for India. In May, the company announced an investment of $1.5 billion (roughly Rs. 13,500 crore) in its operations in the country. This was reportedly done as Apple wants to shift its supply-chain outside of China, due to the high tariff rates imposed by the US, as well as recent hiccups the iPhone maker has faced because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Foxconn's India unit has also hired about 30,000 workers in 2025 for its iPhone assembly plant near Bengaluru, where nearly 80 percent of the hires are women, according to an Economic Times report. This facility is said to span hundreds of acres and is set to become the company's largest factory in the country, with more than 10 assembly lines once it is fully built out.

A Digitimes report now claims that Foxconn's expansion plan is based on China's city-factory playbook, which was explained above. In India, the manufacturing giant is reportedly creating integrated manufacturing zones, complete with residential, healthcare, schooling, and recreational spaces for workers.

Apart from its manufacturing plants near Bengaluru and in Tamil Nadu, Foxcon is reportedly also exploring a 300-acre site in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh. This future site is said to serve the company's first major footprint in Northern India, hinting at a strategic pan-India expansion, similar to what it did in China. Apart from this, the Foxconn-HCL semiconductor venture is also planned to be set up in Uttar Pradesh.

If the company's plans come to fruition, India could be the second country in the world to have a factory-city infrastructure that is geared towards efficiently maximising production volume as well as quality.