BENGALURU, Nov 10 (Reuters) – Three contract workers died of asphyxiation at a Tata Electronics factory in southern India that makes parts for Apple iPhones, triggering investigations by the companies and the state government of Tamil Nadu.
The incident in Hosur, Tamil Nadu, is the latest to hit Apple’s supply chain in India, which is central to the U.S. tech giant’s push to diversify manufacturing beyond China. Since 2017, Apple has steadily ramped up iPhone production in the country, with Foxconn and Tata as its main contract manufacturers.
Here’s a look at problems in recent years at Apple supplier facilities in India:
June-July 2026: A ransomware group posted on the dark web more than 200,000 files stolen from a Tata Electronics iPhone assembly plant also in Hosur. This included sensitive supplier information and photos of Apple’s then-unreleased iPhone 18 Pro. Tata has since restricted internal access to sensitive systems and hired a global consultant to conduct a forensic audit, sources told Reuters.
June 2026: Tamil Nadu’s pollution control board warned Tata’s Hosur iPhone parts plant of a forced shutdown over alleged wastewater contamination of wells in adjacent farmland. Tata said independent analysis showed compliance with regulatory norms, and later said the board had confirmed it had addressed all queries and dropped further action.
January 2025: India’s National Human Rights Commission faulted labour officials for failing to adequately investigate employment discrimination at Foxconn’s iPhone plant, documents obtained by Reuters showed. The probe later cleared Foxconn of any wrongdoing.
November 2024: Foxconn ordered its Indian hiring agents to remove age, gender and marital criteria from job advertisements, people familiar with the matter told Reuters, after a Reuters investigation found it systematically excluded married women from assembly jobs at its southern India plant.
September 2024: A fire at Tata’s Hosur plant, in an area used to store chemicals, halted iPhone component production for several days.
September 2023: Pegatron temporarily stopped iPhone assembly at its Chennai facility in the same southern Indian state after a fire at the factory.
February 2023: Foxlink, which manufactures iPhone chargers, suspended production at its assembly facility in Chittoor in the state of Andhra Pradesh after a fire caused part of the building to collapse.
December 2021: Operations at a plant belonging to Foxconn near Chennai city were halted for more than three weeks after 250 workers fell sick, sparking protests. Apple later found facilities did not meet required standards.
December 2020: Workers at a Wistron plant in Karnataka state’s Narsapura destroyed property during protests over non-payment of wages, forcing the Taiwanese contract manufacturer to shut the plant for three months. Wistron sold its India business to the Tata Group in 2023.
(Reporting by Munsif Vengattil in Bengaluru; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
