(Photo credit: Reuters)

Apple’s major manufacturing partner Foxconn is considering making more investments in India, to add to its existing iPhone and Xiaomi factories in the country. The Taiwan-based company said that the outlook for India looks bright and favorable, and it may make an announcement about further investments in the coming months, Reuters reported citing the company chairman. “We are fully pushing ahead with next steps there, and maybe in a few months’ time we can reveal on our website the next steps and report back to everyone. We’ll have further investment there,” Liu Young-way said at the company’s annual general meeting.

However, he didn’t divulge further information on the company’s plans and its reasons on the business outlook in India. While Liu Young-way said that the outlook for the company looks favorable, he also said that there has been a “certain impact” due to the coronavirus.

In the last few weeks, many companies have shown interest in setting up factories in India after a coronavirus outbreak pushed these companies to shut down operations in the country. Indian government has also tried to make the best of the situation with several states proposing lucrative terms to these companies and attracting them into investing in respective states. BJP-led Haryana had also earlier said that it has come up with a comprehensive strategy to woo investors and companies to the state.

The world’s largest contract manufacturer already makes smartphones in India for Apple Inc and Xiaomi Corp. However, the company had stopped production in March as the country was hit by the coronavirus pandemic. The company had also halted its production in China and its January-March profit nosedived to its lowest in two decades as a result of a manufacturing shutdown in China. The coronavirus outbreak also dealt a severe blow to the demand from customers including Apple. Even then, the company earlier said that it believes the worst of the outbreak for it was over. Foxconn has many factories in China where it assembles Apple’s iPhones.