IPhone supplier Wistron turns biggest investor in PLI scheme

NEW DELHI: Wistron InfoComm, the Indian unit of one of the world’s largest iPhone maker, emerged as the single biggest investor under the government’s production-linked incentives (PLI) scheme for largescale electronics manufacturing, bringing in ₹1,250 crore. Wistron was followed by the local units of Samsung and Foxconn, investing ₹900 crore and ₹650 crore, respectively.

In all, the scheme managed to attract a total of ₹4,200 crore in investments, an official aware of the matter said on condition of anonymity. The government launched the scheme in March 2020 to encourage manufacturing and create jobs.

“The government has enabled a procedure to give visas to foreign nationals involved in

Indian companies under the scheme to boost investment. Moreover, a monitoring group has been set up to expedite the resolution of issues faced by the industry,” the official cited above said on the condition of anonymity.

The scheme, which targets production worth ₹10 trillion and jobs totalling 180,000 jobs has produced electronic items worth about ₹1.67 trillion and nearly 29,000 jobs, according to data from the ministry of electronics and IT.

Queries sent to the investors, as well as the ministries of commerce and electronics remained unanswered till press time.

“The mobile phone PLI is a classic case of deep research and cooperation between industry and all-of-government,” said Pankaj Mohindroo, chairman, India Cellular and Electronics Association (ICEA). “It also had an inherent advantage of tailwinds of 4-5 years of phased manufacturing programme and the establishment of industry and most of the domestic demand being met by domestic manufacturing. The expansion of manufacturing under PLI is resulting in substantial exports which is a very profound result,” Mohindroo added.

Against the backdrop of the pandemic-related disruptions and an acute global chip shortage, the Centre had extended the tenure of the PLI scheme till FY26, allowing the companies to choose any five consecutive years between FY21 and FY26 to achieve the threshold targets for incremental sales, with FY20 as the base year.

However, experts said that investment and production under the scheme could surge further amid the 5G rollout, which is expected to create replacement demand for mobile phones.