Shake up at Wistron follows last December’s employee riot over pay
Apple first produced older iPhone models in India
Wistron is believed to be looking for a new person to be the head of its business in India and has yet to make a selection. The former head of operations in the country has been given less important tasks to do. Apple and Wistron first began to restart iPhone production in India back in March with 6,000 employees, half of the usual 12,000. The company now has 7,000 workers manning the assembly line producing and shipping the iPhone.
Apple started building older iPhone models in India to take advantage of the country’s status as the second largest smartphone market in the world after China (the U.S. is third). The move also keeps prices lower in a country where the sticker price is all important due to India’s low per capita income figure. Manufacturing the iPhone inside the country also eliminates a stiff tax on imported handsets and dovetails with Prime Minister Modi’s “Make in India” initiative.
Besides Wistron, the two other contract manufacturers that assemble the iPhone, Foxconn and Pegatron, also man factories in India. All three companies plan on spending as much as $900 million over the next five years as India hopes to attract more smartphone manufacturers to the country.
Wistron was considered by Apple to have violated the tech giant’s supplier code of conduct. The company admitted that it failed to pay some employees the correct amount of money and some also were not paid on time.
