Apple supplier Foxconn buys huge site in Bengaluru. Details inside

Apple supplier Foxconn has bought a huge tract of land on the outskirts of Indian tech hub Bengaluru, the company said in a filing Tuesday. Coming at a time when Apple is looking to diversify production away from China, the 1.2 million-square-metre (13 million-square-foot) acquisition in Devanahalli, near the airport for Indian tech hub Bengaluru, was announced in a statement to the London Stock Exchange.

Foxconn, also known as, Hon Hai Precision Industry, is the world's biggest contract electronics manufacturer and a principal assembler of Apple iPhones.

Its subsidiary Foxconn Hon Hai Technology India Mega Development was paying three billion rupees ($37 million) for the site, it said.

Another Foxconn unit was acquiring land use rights to a 480,000-square-metre site in Vietnam's Nghe An province, the company said in a statement.

Karnataka state chief minister Basavaraj S. Bommai said in March that Apple would "soon" manufacture iPhones at a new plant in the state, creating "about 100,000 jobs".

As per a Bloomberg News report in March earlier this year,  Foxconn was planning to invest $700 million in a new factory in Karnataka, citing unnamed sources.

Foxconn chairman Young Liu visited the state then to "deepen partnerships... and seek cooperation in new areas such as semiconductor development and electric vehicles", he said in a statement.

He also met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who said the pair's "discussions covered various topics aimed at enhancing India's tech and innovation eco-system".

Foxconn started manufacturing Apple handsets in India in 2019 at its plant in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. Two other Taiwanese suppliers, Wistron and Pegatron, also manufacture and assemble Apple devices in India.

Apple has been making its own push into India. Last month, Apple CEO Tim Cook opened the company's first two retail stores in India.

India accounted for seven percent of Apple's iPhone production in 2022, according to Bloomberg, lagging behind the United States, China, Japan and other countries.

(With inputs from agencies)