Amazon to team up with Hon Hai on Indian manufacturing operation

Amazon plans to work with Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. as part of the American company's first manufacturing operation in India.

FILE PHOTO: The logo of Amazon is seen on the door of an Amazon Books retail store in New York City, U.S., February 14, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo (REUTERS)

E-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc. plans to work with Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. as part of the American company's first manufacturing operation in India.

According to Focus Taiwan citing a statement on Amazon Blog in India, the company said it will start manufacturing efforts in the country by teaming up with contract manufacturer Cloud Network Technology, a subsidiary of Hon Hai in Chennai, to roll out its set-top box device Fire TV Stick.

The manufacturing cooperation with Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn on the global market, is scheduled to begin later this year, according to Amazon.

"The device manufacturing program will be able to produce hundreds of thousands of Fire TV Stick devices every year, catering to the demands of customers in India," Amazon said in the statement as quoted by Focus Taiwan.

The venture with Hon Hai will give the American company its first production line in India, a move which echoes Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan (self-reliant India) campaign, according to Amazon.

Amazon said the company "will continuously evaluate scaling capacity to additional marketplaces/cities depending on the domestic demand" in India.

Hon Hai and Amazon have worked together in the field of electric car development. Amazon Web Services has cooperated with Hon Hai's MIH Open Platform, which provides hardware and software to other automakers for electric car development, Focus Taiwan reported.

This comes as Amazon is set to begin manufacturing electronic devices in India later this year, said the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology on Tuesday.

The announcement came after Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad held a virtual meeting with Amit Agarwal, Amazon's Global Senior Vice President and Country Head for India.