Foxconn is adding another major link to Apple’s steadily expanding Indian supply chain: metal casings for future iPhones. The contract-manufacturing giant has leased roughly 500,000 square feet inside the ESR Industrial Park at Oragadam, on the outskirts of Chennai, Tamil Nadu, and has already begun construction of a dedicated enclosure factory.
According to a report from the Economic Times, the site sits immediately next to Foxconn’s forthcoming display-module assembly plant, now in an advanced stage of development, allowing the company to feed multiple high-value components into nearby iPhone assembly lines once production ramps up. Locating both units side-by-side should slash intra-plant logistics costs, shorten lead times, and help Apple avoid import tariffs on bulky parts that were previously shipped in from China.
Until now, Tata Electronics’ Hosur campus had been the only Indian source of iPhone casings. Foxconn’s entry breaks that exclusivity and gives Apple a second domestic supplier for one of a handset’s most expensive mechanical parts. Analysts say the added competition could pressure prices while giving Apple redundancy in case of disruptions at any single plant.
Apple’s India Push Looking Set To Work Out
Component-level investments also dovetail with Apple’s broader “China-plus-one” strategy. New Delhi estimates that 14 percent of global iPhone output already rolls off Indian lines, and the government has repeatedly said the target is 25 percent by 2028. Building casings locally eliminates a key import bottleneck and inches Apple closer to that goal while insulating it from geopolitical risks and potential U.S. tariffs tied to Chinese manufacturing.
Neither Foxconn nor Apple has disclosed a production start date, but sources quoted by The Economic Times expect the enclosure unit to open in phases next year. Tamil Nadu’s government, which markets itself as India’s electronics capital, says a full-scale casing line could employ thousands of machinists, polishers, and quality engineers and create thousands more indirect jobs in tooling, logistics, and materials supply.
With display modules, AirPods, and now casings joining iPhone assembly around Chennai, Foxconn, and by extension Apple, is signaling that India is graduating from a simple final-assembly hub to a vertically integrated production center. As more critical parts move under the same roofs that bolt iPhones together, the country’s ambition to become Apple’s second home for hardware manufacturing looks markedly closer to reality.