Tata Electronics has agreed to purchase a majority stake in Pegatron's iPhone manufacturing facility in India. Pegatron, a Taiwanese company, operates a plant in India that assembles iPhones for Apple. By acquiring a majority stake in this plant, Tata Electronics is forming a joint venture with Pegatron.
Under this joint venture Tata will hold 60% of the stake and will run daily operations while Pegatron will hold the remaining 40% and provide technical support as per the sources.
Tata declined to comment, and both Apple and Pegatron did not respond to Reuters' report. In April, Reuters reported that Pegatron, a company that makes iPhones, was in talks to sell its iPhone factory in India to Tata, with support from Apple.
This move is part of Apple's effort to reduce its reliance on China due to rising tensions between China and the U.S. For Tata, buying the Pegatron plant in Chennai will help boost its own iPhone manufacturing plans. Tata is quickly growing in the iPhone production business, competing with Foxconn, the other major company that makes iPhones in India.
The first source reported that the deal was officially communicated to employees at the iPhone plant on Friday. According to the second source, the two companies are planning to seek approval from the Competition Commission of India (CCI) in the next few days.
Tata already runs an iPhone assembly plant in Karnataka, which it took over from Taiwan's Wistron last year. It’s also building another plant in Hosur, Tamil Nadu, where it has a factory that makes iPhone components. This component plant had a fire in September. Analysts predict that India will account for 20-25% of total iPhone shipments this year, up from 12-14% last year.