Wistron quit assembling iPhones in India after a wage riot and years of losses

Wistron was the first of Apple's three global contract manufacturers to assemble iPhones in India, starting in 2017 at Kolar near Bengaluru. By May 2023 it was selling that unit to the Tata Group, even as Foxconn and Pegatron doubled down on the country. Wistron never made money from the Apple India business: the smallest of the three players, it could not win higher margins from Apple and never got into the high-return layers of the supply chain — component manufacturing and vendor-managed inventory, where one consultant said warehousing margins run close to 100%.

Labour control failed first. In December 2020, workers rioted at the newly opened Kolar unit protesting allegedly unpaid wages and arduous hours; the violence cost the company about Rs 430 crore in damages, and Apple put Wistron on probation, halting the unit until corrective measures were taken. Work resumed in February 2021, but in May 2023 — the week the exit plans firmed up — 400 senior production staff protested, demanding salary parity with junior contractual workers.

Wistron had put roughly Rs 1,000 crore into India under the production-linked incentive scheme, booked more than Rs 200 crore of iPhone manufacturing turnover in FY23 and collected about Rs 600 crore in incentives — yet saw no long-term profitability as a pure final assembler. Having sold its Kunshan, China iPhone plant to Luxshare in 2020, the company bet on its core IT manufacturing in Vietnam and Mexico, keeping only the Indian repair facility it has run since 2008.

About Rs 430 crore in riot damages; years in the red on the Apple India business; the Kolar iPhone unit sold to Tata and Wistron exited assembly

It stayed a thin-margin final assembler: it lacked the vendor-managed-inventory layer where contract-manufacturing profit sits, and had no leverage versus Foxconn and Pegatron.

It ran the new Kolar plant into a December 2020 riot over allegedly unpaid wages and arduous hours — roughly Rs 430 crore in damages and an Apple probation that halted the unit.

Despite about Rs 1,000 crore of investment and Rs 600 crore of government incentives, the Apple India business never turned a profit.

Workforce grievances kept resurfacing: in May 2023, 400 senior production staff protested for pay parity with junior contractual workers.

Being first into a flagship market means little at the bottom of a value chain: without the high-margin layers — and with labour slipping — a marquee client cannot save you.

Tata executives were already taking up key positions at the unit before the deal closed, and the Tata Group was running trials to assemble the upcoming iPhone 15 in India. Wistron kept its India repair facility and refocused on IT manufacturing in Vietnam and Mexico, while Foxconn and Pegatron expanded their own Indian iPhone operations.