Tata Seals Deal with Pegatron for iPhone Plant in India's Tamil Nadu

FILE PHOTO: Apple iPhones are seen inside India's first Apple retail store during a media preview, a day ahead of its launch in Mumbai, India, April 17, 2023. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Apple iPhones are seen inside India's first Apple retail store during a media preview, a day ahead of its launch in Mumbai, India, April 17, 2023. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas/File Photo
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Tata Seals Deal with Pegatron for iPhone Plant in India's Tamil Nadu

FILE PHOTO: Apple iPhones are seen inside India's first Apple retail store during a media preview, a day ahead of its launch in Mumbai, India, April 17, 2023. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Apple iPhones are seen inside India's first Apple retail store during a media preview, a day ahead of its launch in Mumbai, India, April 17, 2023. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas/File Photo

India's Tata Electronics has agreed to buy a majority stake in Taiwanese contract manufacturer Pegatron's only iPhone plant in India, forming a new joint venture that strengthens Tata's position as an Apple supplier, two sources told Reuters.
Under the deal announced internally last week, Tata will hold 60% and run daily operations under the joint venture, while Pegatron will hold the rest and provide technical support, said the two sources, who declined to be named as the details are not yet public.
The sources did not elaborate on the financials of the deal.
Tata declined to comment, while Apple and Pegatron did not respond to Reuters queries on Sunday.
Reuters was first to report in April that Pegatron had the backing of Apple and was holding advanced talks to sell its only iPhone plant in India to Tata, marking the Taiwanese firm's latest scale back of its Apple partnership.
Apple is increasingly looking to diversify its supply chain beyond China amid geopolitical tensions between Beijing and Washington. For India's Tata, the Chennai Pegatron plant will bolster its iPhone manufacturing plans.
Tata is one of the largest conglomerates in India and has been fast expanding into iPhone manufacturing, rivaling the only other iPhone contract manufacturer operating in India, Foxconn.
The announcement for the deal's closure was made internally at the iPhone plant on Friday, said the first source.
The second source said the two companies plan to file for an approval of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) in the coming days.
Tata already operates an iPhone assembly plant in the southern state of Karnataka, which it took over from Taiwan's Wistron last year. It is also building another in Hosur in Tamil Nadu, where it also has an iPhone component plant which was involved in a fire incident in September.
Analysts estimate India will contribute 20-25% of total iPhone shipments this year, from 12-14% last year.
The Tata-Pegatron plant, which has around 10,000 employees and makes 5 million iPhones annually, will be Tata's third iPhone factory in India.



Samsung Electronics Plans $7.2 Bln Buyback after Share Price Plunges

A Samsung logo is displayed in a supermarket in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, October 29, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic
A Samsung logo is displayed in a supermarket in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, October 29, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic
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Samsung Electronics Plans $7.2 Bln Buyback after Share Price Plunges

A Samsung logo is displayed in a supermarket in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, October 29, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic
A Samsung logo is displayed in a supermarket in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, October 29, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic

Samsung Electronics has decided to buy back shares worth 10 trillion won ($7.17 billion) over a one-year period to boost shareholder value, after shares plunged to more than four-year lows earlier in the week.
It is the first time Samsung Electronics has decided to buy back shares since 2017.
Of the total, three trillion won worth of shares, or 50.14 million common shares and 6.91 million preferred shares, will be repurchased in the next three months and cancelled, Samsung said after the market closed on Friday.
The board of directors will decide on ways to enhance shareholder value, including when and how to use the remaining seven trillion in the repurchase programme, Reuters quoted it as saying in a statement.
In the short term, the decision would likely help Samsung's share performance, but the company needs concrete business plans to better support its share performance, analysts said.
The world's top memory chip maker last month apologised for a disappointing quarterly profit, as it lagged rivals in supplying artificial intelligence chips to Nvidia. Samsung was the worst performing stock among major global chipmakers, also hurt by President-elect Donald Trump's threat to levy tariffs on imports that would hit demand for electronics products.
"It is a reflection that Samsung feels a sense of crisis due to the sharp stock drops," said Park Ju-gun, head of corporate analysis firm Leaders Index.
Park said the share buyback may intend to bolster depressed stock prices for Samsung shareholders including Chairman Jay Y. Lee's family members, who have put up some of their Samsung stocks as collateral to help pay inheritance taxes, as recent plunges threaten to trigger a margin call - a request for more collateral from banks for Lee's mother and his two sisters.
Shares of Samsung Electronics rose 7.2% on Friday, their biggest daily jump since March 2020 and rebounding from their lowest level since mid-June 2020. They were still down 32% year-to-date.