Foxconn has recruited close to 30,000 employees at its new iPhone assembly facility in Devanahalli near Bengaluru within eight to nine months, marking one of the fastest factory scale-ups seen in India, The Economic Times reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
The hiring surge highlights Apple’s push to diversify manufacturing beyond China, with India emerging as a central pillar of its global supply chain. The 300-acre campus is largely operated by women, who account for around 80% of the workforce, according to the report. Most employees are aged 19–24 and are entering the workforce for the first time.
The plant began trial production in April–May, initially assembling iPhone 16 models, and has since moved to manufacturing the iPhone 17 Pro Max, sources told The Economic Times. More than 80% of output is exported, the newspaper said.
At peak capacity next year, the unit could employ up to 50,000 people, according to another person cited by the report. The campus includes six large dormitories, several already operational for women employees, with construction of remaining facilities progressing rapidly.
With further expansion planned, the site is expected to house more women workers at a single location than any other public or private organisation in India, people tracking the project told The Economic Times. A significant share of employees are women migrants from neighbouring states.
The project is envisioned as a self-contained township, with housing, healthcare, schooling and entertainment facilities on site. Workers receive free accommodation and subsidised meals, and earn an average monthly salary of about ₹18,000, among the highest pay levels for women in blue-collar roles, according to estimates cited by the newspaper.
Foxconn is investing around ₹20,000 crore in the Bengaluru venture, which is set to become India’s largest factory by employment and production capacity once fully operational, The Economic Times reported. The production floor alone spans nearly 250,000 square feet.
When fully built out, the Bengaluru plant is expected to host up to a dozen iPhone assembly lines, compared with around four currently, according to people familiar with the development. It is likely to surpass Foxconn’s first iPhone facility in Tamil Nadu, which employs about 41,000 workers, the report added. Apple and Foxconn did not respond to queries sent by the newspaper.
Apple has steadily expanded iPhone production in India, aided by the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme launched in 2021. Government officials cited by The Economic Times described the Bengaluru project as emblematic of the Centre’s push to raise manufacturing’s share of GDP, noting the pace and scale would have been difficult to imagine a few years ago.
India has become a critical link in Apple’s global supply chain amid geopolitical shifts, with all iPhone models now produced in the country from the start and exported worldwide, The Economic Times reported. Apple’s supplier ecosystem in India has expanded to nearly 45 companies, spanning components and sub-assemblies. New recruits—mostly high school or polytechnic graduates—undergo about six weeks of on-the-job training before joining production lines, the newspaper said.