Why the iPhone, world’s hottest gadget, is missing from Foxconn’s Asia tour
When Foxconn Technology Group’s Young Liu toured Asia last month, he avoided speaking about the one client for which the Taiwanese company is most famous. In meetings with the leaders of India, Indonesia and Thailand, the chairman focused on developing semiconductors and building electric vehicles instead of churning out Apple iPhones.
That’s a stark contrast to eight years ago, when Liu’s predecessor, company founder Terry Gou, met with then-Governor of Jakarta Joko Widodo — known as Jokowi — and promised to invest $1 billion into Indonesia. Though not explicitly stated, the expectation was that the Southeast Asian nation with a population then at 255 million might become a new hub for iPhone manufacturing. That Foxconn deal helped solidify Jokowi’s business credentials and get him elected president later that year — though the money never came.
Wherever Foxconn goes there has always been the implication that the world’s biggest electronics manufacturing company will set up a factory to assemble the planet’s hottest gadget, and with it create thousands of jobs. On only a few occasions has that happened. Both India and Brazil host iPhone factories. Indonesia and the US do not.
Today, that narrative has shifted. In meetings with Jokowi, India’s Narendra Modi and Prayuth Chan-Ocha of Thailand, the conversation has been much more about Foxconn’s new products, and what role those nations can play in developing them. The iPhone wasn’t a feature.
India, for example, has dreams of creating a semiconductor industry. Having trained millions of brilliant engineers — many of whom find better opportunities overseas — and watched rival China climb the ranks of the global chip sector, New Delhi wants to be part of the action. This is not
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