In a big boost to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ initiative towards making the country an electronics manufacturing hub, Wistron Corp of Taiwan has partnered with Optiemus Electronics to build products such as smartphones and laptops, among others.
As part of the deal with contract manufacturer Wistron, Optiemus Electronics will invest Rs 1,350 crores in the next 3 to 5 years with an aim to achieve a revenue of Rs 38,000 crores in multiple products segment. Both the companies will also work towards creating a joint hub in India for Design Solutions Product Development apart from bringing smart manufacturing to India.
The company plans to hire roughly 11,000 workers for its two plants on the outskirts of New Delhi. It has a workforce of just about 300 now.
“Given the market dynamics globally, a shift is happening towards India and the government has come with PLIs. It makes sense to do things together. Wistron has a vision for India. We are now reviving the relationship again. We have already been exchanging ideas and expertise,” A. Gururaj, MD, Optiemus Electronics Limited told ET in an interaction. “Last time it was only mobile, this expansion now goes beyond to other categories.”
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The success of India’s electronics manufacturing sector is key to Modi’s ambition of turning the country into the factory of the world, like neighboring China. To boost exports, Modi has announced a Production Linked-Incentive (PLI) scheme that pays manufacturers for sales of locally made goods.
Although foreign companies need to make phones and laptops above a certain value to get PLI benefits, there is no such threshold for Indian companies. That means Wistron and Optiemus, which have won PLI approvals for smartphones and IT products, can make cheaper products and still get the government incentives.
In 2017, Wistron began assembling iPhones in a small plant in the southern tech hub of Bengaluru and has since expanded to a much bigger factory in Karnataka state’s Narasapura industrial area. Worker discontent over unpaid wages led to a riot at the Narasapura factory late last year, leading Apple to put Wistron on probation.
Apart from being a key Apple supplier, Wistron also makes laptops for Dell, Xiaomi, Acer, and Intel-based servers.
“We have been working together for the last 5 years. We do commit to the Make in India policy. We came in 10 years ago and built business quickly in the last 4 years. from 1000, we have 10,000 employees in India. We see India becoming a very big wearable market and even 5G phones are a big opportunity along with serve and storage for cloud services. We can grow business together,” David Shen, President & CEO, Wistron Smart Devices said.
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