Nokia, Foxconn to tango again in India with Microsoft’s smartphone foray

Nokia and Foxconn's association is likely to be revived as Microsoft prepares to sign an agreement to have its smartphones manufactured at Foxconn's factory in Sri City, Andhra Pradesh.

In the event of the deal  going through, Foxconn would start local manufacture of Microsoft phones in India.

According to several sources, the Foxconn plant would produce two variants of Microsoft smartphones for India, a market the Redmond, US-based company had been catering to from factories in China, Vietnam and Finland.

According to analysts, Microsoft would join brands such as Micromax, Lava, Spice, Gionee, and Xioami that had either started, or were looking at local manufacturing instead of importing, especially from China.

Foxconn, a Taiwanese contract manufacturer for top global brands including Apple, was also gearing up with its India plans after the exit of Nokia from phone manufacturing.

Terry Gou, chairman of Foxconn Technology Group, had during a recent visit to India made a statement that the company would set aside $2 billion to establish 10-12 factories across the country with initial plans for Andhra, Maharashtra and Gujarat.

Before it was acquired by Microsoft, Nokia had one of its largest manufacturing plants near Chennai, but the Finnish company's standoff with Indian tax authorities, led to the exclusion of the Chennai plant from the sale to Microsoft.

With no future plans for manufacturing phones, Nokia shut down the plant and Foxcon, which too had a plant in the same SEZ followed suit.

The software giant had now approached Foxconn to manufacture the smartphones in the same facility where it was reportedly manufacturing Xiaomi and InFocus smartphones.

While it had not revealed any numbers, the facility was capable of manufacturing 10,000 smartphones per day, with the company planning on expansion of capacity.

Foxconn counts many top drawer clients including Apple, Amazon, Dell Cisco and Microsoft among others. It was also said to be looking to make iPhones and iPads in India. According to recent reports, it was believed to be in talks with Japanese internet giant SoftBank for setting up a joint venture in India for manufacturing telecom products.