India’s Optiemus Electronics, a diversified business group with over two decades of experience in the manufacturing, distribution and retail of global telecom brands across India, is partnering with contract manufacturer Wistron Corp of Taiwan to build products such as smartphones and laptops.
As part of the deal, says Reuters, Optiemus will invest roughly $200 million to ramp up electronics manufacturing in the next three to five years.
The partnership is expected to yield revenues of $5.13 billion over five years for Optiemus, the company said, adding that it plans to hire roughly 11,000 workers for its two plants on the outskirts of New Delhi. This is a massive boost to a workforce said to be only about 300-strong at the moment.
The success of India's electronics manufacturing sector is key to a government push to make the country an electronics manufacturing hub. Production-linked-incentive (PLI) programmes that pay manufacturers for sales of locally made goods have supported this scheme, which will allow Wistron and Optiemus to keep prices down.
Wistron began assembling iPhones in a small plant in Bengaluru in 2017. It now occupies a much bigger factory in Karnataka state's Narasapura industrial area. However, Wistron attracted unfavourable publicity after a riot at the Narasapura factory late last year due to worker discontent over unpaid wages.
This partnership with Optiemus may help Wistron to diversify manufacturing in India to other products beyond smartphones. It should also boost efforts to assemble devices locally for other global clients as well as its key client Apple.
