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Not just Apple manufacturing, seems like they're divesting from India in general after 10 years, also killing their plans to make laptops and EV components. My

Not just Apple manufacturing, seems like they're divesting from India in general after 10 years, also killing their plans to make laptops and EV components. My understanding is they were barely making money throughout their time in India. Wonder if Tata takeover of iphone assembly going to do better? Kind of expected outcome for TWnese companies known to treat their labourers like shit and India gov unable to manage their population from breaking things after being treated like shit. Which has caused problems for more than just Wistron. Yes it's good workers standing up for themselves, but smart thing is to do that after you've proven indispensible, otherwise reinforces India being difficult place to do business in.

alephnerd 3y ago
Winstron's divestment to Tata was honestly a good move. A big reason Foxconn, Winstron, and other Taiwanese/Malaysian/Singaporean assemblers were able to succeed in Mainland China was due to cultural competency within the existing Chinese diaspora (eg. knowing how to communicate to who, how to manage workers, etc). Foxconn, Winstron, and co would just straight up have Taiwanese/Malaysian/Singaporean/Thai Chinese move to Mainland China (in reality mostly Guangdong, Fujian, and Zhejiang due to cultural and familial connections plus the easy commute from Hong Kong or Shanghai) to help manage operations. Taiwanese companies don't have that kind of advantage within South Asia. At that point, it makes sense just to work directly with Indian conglomerates like Tata, who already have in house domain experience manufacturing everything due to India's Chaebol-esque corporate culture, or Japanese+Korean companies that are open to training from scratch. I've seen first hand how South Korean and Japanese companies managed their assembly plants in my dad's village in India (they manfuacture the electronics and computers for Wind Turbines) and it was a night and day difference to a similar attempted Taiwanese operation there. The difference was SK+JP companies would actually try to hire management locally, and if there wasn't anyone qualified, then invest in actually training from scratch, or alternatively, make a partnership with an existing company in India to help manage the local operation. Meanwhile, the attempted Taiwanese operation underbid severely, saw significant timeline overruns, tried to manage everything in-house, and the project was eventually scrapped and given to a private sector South Korean-Indian consortium. There was also a bit of corruption/malfeasance with the Taiwanese operation which pissed people off in the district. All this happened in the 2009-2012 timeframe
- dirtyid 3y ago
  I rememeber in 90s, local mid-level managers who worked for MNC in PRC tend to like their SKR bosses and frequently hated TW bosses simply because cultural overlap allowed them to push harder. With SKR they could at least feign ignorance with language barrier but TBH still got their work done. I can imagine shitshow of having language barrier and still not meeting KPIs because they're not cross culture competent. Anyway Tata feels like a good fit, always felt like matter of time before audit/tax or political shenanigans drive foreign electronics assemblers out and eventually consolidate under India champions. Still seems a little premature, but I remember numbers last year that 2500/12000 registered forreign companies closed Indian operations since mid 10s, so maybe it's time for India chaebols to take over.
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    > worked for MNC in PRC tend to like their SKR bosses and frequently hated TW bosses simply because cultural overlap allowed them to push harder. With SKR they could at least feign ignorance with language barrier but TBH still got their work done Haha yep, I've heard similar stories in Vietnam as well. Idk why but Taiwanese/Malaysian/Singaporean management culture is absolutely atrocious compared to Japanese+SK management culture. All of them share equally shitty work cultures, but at least the Japanese+SK ones actually tried to train people from scratch. I really don't know why Taiwanese/Malaysian/Singaporean companies don't do that as well. > always felt like matter of time before audit/tax or political shenanigans drive foreign electronics assemblers out and eventually consolidate under India champions Ehn, India's a federal system so financial+political shenanigans are highly dependent on the state's political and business culture. It's the same in PRC ofc, with the administration in Guangdong/Zhejiang/Fujian being much more competent than the administration in Yunnan, Hunan, or Hubei. That said, knowing about these intricacies requires cultural domain experience, which can only be acquired by training+hiring locally, or working with local players. > I remember numbers last year that 2500/12000 registered forreign companies closed Indian operations since mid 10s, so maybe it's time for India chaebols to take over I'd be curious about the breakdown by nationality. After the Doklam standoff in 2017, Indian Federal Regulators began cracking down on Chinese FDI severely (which before 2018 was one of the largest FDI inflows India received), which lead those firms to divest their operations to Indian, Korean, Taiwanese or Japanese corporations. For example, Xiaomi India's operation was originally run from Mainland China itself, but they were forced to sell their India operation to a Taiwanese-Indian consortium, so the only Chinese thing left of Xiaomi India is just the name.
gnabgib 3y ago
After 15 years they are not planning on exiting India, just the iPhone aspect. "Wistron entered India in 2008 with a repair facility servicing PCs, laptops, servers and other devices it manufactured. In 2017, it started making iPhones for Apple and now makes the iPhone 14, iPhone 13, iPhone 12 and the iPhone SE. The company will continue with its repair facility." https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/wistron-exits-apple-india-biz-after-tripping-over-scale-work-culture/articleshow/100401616.cms https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/wistron...
- dirtyid 3y ago
  They were hoping to expand to manufacturing laptops, IoT and EV components a few years after they spung up iphone assembly. Some of the reporting suggest this won't happen anymore. An established electronics manufacturer stuck with repair depot work, i.e. the portfolio they entered country with, after 10 or 15 years is not a good look.

alephnerd 3y ago

Winstron's divestment to Tata was honestly a good move. A big reason Foxconn, Winstron, and other Taiwanese/Malaysian/Singaporean assemblers were able to succeed in Mainland China was due to cultural competency within the existing Chinese diaspora (eg. knowing how to communicate to who, how to manage workers, etc). Foxconn, Winstron, and co would just straight up have Taiwanese/Malaysian/Singaporean/Thai Chinese move to Mainland China (in reality mostly Guangdong, Fujian, and Zhejiang due to cultural and familial connections plus the easy commute from Hong Kong or Shanghai) to help manage operations. Taiwanese companies don't have that kind of advantage within South Asia. At that point, it makes sense just to work directly with Indian conglomerates like Tata, who already have in house domain experience manufacturing everything due to India's Chaebol-esque corporate culture, or Japanese+Korean companies that are open to training from scratch. I've seen first hand how South Korean and Japanese companies managed their assembly plants in my dad's village in India (they manfuacture the electronics and computers for Wind Turbines) and it was a night and day difference to a similar attempted Taiwanese operation there. The difference was SK+JP companies would actually try to hire management locally, and if there wasn't anyone qualified, then invest in actually training from scratch, or alternatively, make a partnership with an existing company in India to help manage the local operation. Meanwhile, the attempted Taiwanese operation underbid severely, saw significant timeline overruns, tried to manage everything in-house, and the project was eventually scrapped and given to a private sector South Korean-Indian consortium. There was also a bit of corruption/malfeasance with the Taiwanese operation which pissed people off in the district. All this happened in the 2009-2012 timeframe

dirtyid 3y ago
I rememeber in 90s, local mid-level managers who worked for MNC in PRC tend to like their SKR bosses and frequently hated TW bosses simply because cultural overlap allowed them to push harder. With SKR they could at least feign ignorance with language barrier but TBH still got their work done. I can imagine shitshow of having language barrier and still not meeting KPIs because they're not cross culture competent. Anyway Tata feels like a good fit, always felt like matter of time before audit/tax or political shenanigans drive foreign electronics assemblers out and eventually consolidate under India champions. Still seems a little premature, but I remember numbers last year that 2500/12000 registered forreign companies closed Indian operations since mid 10s, so maybe it's time for India chaebols to take over.
- alephnerd 3y ago
  > worked for MNC in PRC tend to like their SKR bosses and frequently hated TW bosses simply because cultural overlap allowed them to push harder. With SKR they could at least feign ignorance with language barrier but TBH still got their work done Haha yep, I've heard similar stories in Vietnam as well. Idk why but Taiwanese/Malaysian/Singaporean management culture is absolutely atrocious compared to Japanese+SK management culture. All of them share equally shitty work cultures, but at least the Japanese+SK ones actually tried to train people from scratch. I really don't know why Taiwanese/Malaysian/Singaporean companies don't do that as well. > always felt like matter of time before audit/tax or political shenanigans drive foreign electronics assemblers out and eventually consolidate under India champions Ehn, India's a federal system so financial+political shenanigans are highly dependent on the state's political and business culture. It's the same in PRC ofc, with the administration in Guangdong/Zhejiang/Fujian being much more competent than the administration in Yunnan, Hunan, or Hubei. That said, knowing about these intricacies requires cultural domain experience, which can only be acquired by training+hiring locally, or working with local players. > I remember numbers last year that 2500/12000 registered forreign companies closed Indian operations since mid 10s, so maybe it's time for India chaebols to take over I'd be curious about the breakdown by nationality. After the Doklam standoff in 2017, Indian Federal Regulators began cracking down on Chinese FDI severely (which before 2018 was one of the largest FDI inflows India received), which lead those firms to divest their operations to Indian, Korean, Taiwanese or Japanese corporations. For example, Xiaomi India's operation was originally run from Mainland China itself, but they were forced to sell their India operation to a Taiwanese-Indian consortium, so the only Chinese thing left of Xiaomi India is just the name.

gnabgib 3y ago

After 15 years they are not planning on exiting India, just the iPhone aspect. "Wistron entered India in 2008 with a repair facility servicing PCs, laptops, servers and other devices it manufactured. In 2017, it started making iPhones for Apple and now makes the iPhone 14, iPhone 13, iPhone 12 and the iPhone SE. The company will continue with its repair facility." https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/wistron-exits-apple-india-biz-after-tripping-over-scale-work-culture/articleshow/100401616.cms https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/wistron...

dirtyid 3y ago
They were hoping to expand to manufacturing laptops, IoT and EV components a few years after they spung up iphone assembly. Some of the reporting suggest this won't happen anymore. An established electronics manufacturer stuck with repair depot work, i.e. the portfolio they entered country with, after 10 or 15 years is not a good look.