Project Elephant, a $3.5 billion factory to produce iPhones in India, sparks a real estate boom



Foxconn , the Taiwanese company known for contracting iPhone manufacturing, is moving ahead with its 'Project Elephant' project, which will see the company set up a $2.5 billion (approximately 350 billion yen) factory in India. It has been reported that Foxconn's expansion into India is having a major economic impact on certain parts of southern India.

Foxconn's India iPhone factory triggers real estate boom - Rest of World
https://restofworld.org/2025/foxconn-india-iphone-factory-bengaluru/



iPhones are manufactured by contract electronics manufacturers such as Foxconn, but many of these companies' factories are located in China, where labor costs are low, so iPhone shipments dropped sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic. With the risks of concentrating production bases in one place becoming clear, and the trade war between the United States and China, Apple is expected to expand its production bases outside of China. India is attracting particular attention, and it is expected that approximately 25% of iPhones will be manufactured in India by 2027.

50% of iPhones could be made in India by 2027 - GIGAZINE



Foxconn is based in Devanahalli, a suburb of Bengaluru, India's high-tech hub, where Project Elephant is based. Project Elephant's site area is about 13 million square meters, the size of about 220 soccer fields. Below are the blueprints and photos of Project Elephant under construction.




Foxconn is an electronics manufacturer headquartered in Taiwan but with production facilities in China. Project Elephant will be Foxconn's second-largest factory outside China and is expected to create 40,000 jobs.

According to data from a real estate consultancy, property prices in Devanahalli have risen 35% since Foxconn moved in. Developers are also promoting properties within a 10km radius of Project Elephant as 'near Foxconn,' which has doubled the number of properties in the surrounding area in about three years from 2022.



According to real estate agent Ashish Jha, when he started selling properties in Devanahalli's industrial area in 2019, the price of under-construction properties was 3,500 rupees (about 5,800 yen) per smallest unit. However, with the impact of Project Elephant, more than 30 schools, multiple shopping malls and a number of state-of-the-art hospitals have been built in the area, and the price of the smallest unit has skyrocketed to 9,500 rupees (about 15,000 yen), Jha said.

Foxconn expects an influx of tens of thousands of workers and is also working with local property developers to accommodate workers from Southeast Asian countries such as China, the Philippines and Taiwan.

Meanwhile, Devanahalli farmers have protested against the industrialization led by Project Elephant. 'They always bring in these great stories, but what about the jobs? The government is not giving farmers and their children the education and skills they need to get the jobs Foxconn brings, and most villagers are not employable in the factory, except for a few roles such as cleaners and gatekeepers,' said Ramesh Cheemachanahalli, a farmer leader in Devanahalli.

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in Hardware, Posted by log1e_dh