Alphabet Inc.’s Google is scouting for suppliers in India to assemble its Pixel smartphones because it borrows from Apple Inc.’s playbook to diversify past China.
Google has initiated early conversations with firms together with homegrown Lava Worldwide Ltd. and Dixon Applied sciences India Ltd. in addition to Foxconn Know-how Group’s Indian unit Bharat FIH, folks acquainted with the matter mentioned, asking to not be named because the matter is personal.
Google can be the newest world expertise participant to maneuver manufacturing to India. The potential companions it’s speaking to have gained Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s so-called production-linked monetary incentives, which have boosted native manufacturing. Apple has used this system to widen its provider base in India and tripled iPhone output to greater than $7 billion within the fiscal yr by March 2023.
Modi has been pitching India in its place manufacturing hub, as extra firms have gotten cautious of the dangers of relying on China after its harsh Covid lockdowns and a commerce conflict between Washington and Beijing. Modi is scheduled to go to the US this week the place his delegation is anticipated to carry talks on matters together with a elimination of tech commerce boundaries between the 2 nations.
Final month, India’s Know-how Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw met with Google Chief Government Officer Sundar Pichai on the firm’s headquarters in Mountain View, California, for a dialog that revolved round Modi’s native manufacturing drive and India’s state-backed expertise push.
Key Google executives who visited India this month for the partnership talks included Ana Corrales, working chief of its shopper {hardware} arm, and Maggie Wei, a senior director of world sustaining product operations, the folks mentioned.
Representatives for Lava, Dixon, Google and Foxconn didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Google constructed about 9 million Pixel smartphones final yr, in response to Counterpoint Analysis, and the discussions in India underscore its plans to maneuver manufacturing past China and Vietnam. The Pixel is among the many most subtle smartphones, and Google makes use of its flagship {hardware} product to showcase what its Android working system and apps are able to when optimized.
India is a key progress marketplace for Google’s companies however the firm has largely watched from the sidelines as cheaper Chinese language telephones have dominated the area. Native meeting may assist drive up Pixel gross sales, and if the telephone effort is profitable, Google may additionally transfer manufacturing of different {hardware} similar to audio system to India, the folks mentioned.
Nonetheless, there isn’t any certainty Google’s talks will end in a deal and the corporate may decide to not construct the Pixel in India, the folks mentioned.
(With Bloomberg inputs)
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Up to date: 20 Jun 2023, 02:00 PM IST