Tatas in talks to buy top Apple vendor’s plant; layoffs, recession fears may hit IIT packages

Also in this letter:
■ Top packages at IITs may dip thanks to layoffs, recession fears
■ Swiggy shuts The Bowl Company cloud kitchens in Delhi-NCR
■ India was the world’s biggest smartwatch market in Q3

Tata Group in talks to buy Wistron’s Apple facility in Karnataka

The Tata Group has begun talks with Taipei’s Wistron Corp, one of the top three Apple vendors in India, to buy its sole manufacturing facility in Karnataka for Rs 4,000-5,000 crore, people familiar with the discussions told us.

The transaction, if successful, will help the conglomerate ramp up the manufacturing capabilities of Tata Electronics Pvt Ltd (TEPL) in precision engineering.

Catch up quick: TEPL is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Sons. It was set up to lead the group’s ambitions to become a mobile phone and component contract manufacturer at scale after group chairman N Chandrasekaran sought to leverage the geopolitical backlash against China and woo smartphone companies like Apple to India.

The Tatas have been toying with the idea of setting up an electronics manufacturing joint venture with Wistron, Bloomberg reported in early September. But our sources said the group was increasingly looking at buying the facility at Narasapura in Karnataka’s Kolar district. Tata Electronics’ facility is in Hosur, Tamil Nadu.

Sources close to the Tata Group said the company would independently pursue the JV route in case the buyout didn’t go through.

Apple vendors in India: Foxconn, Pegatron and Wistron are the three leading vendors for Apple in India. Luxshare, a Chinese company, was also supposed to set up shop in India, but its plans have not yet been cleared by the union government, as we reported on October 28.

According to a report by JP Morgan, Apple plans to shift 25% of its iPhone production to India by 2025 to diversify its manufacturing base, which is dependent heavily on China. According to the report, 5% of global iPhone 14 production will be in India by the end of 2022.

Top packages at IITs may dip thanks to layoffs, recession fears

Top packages at the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) are likely to fall for the class of 2023 from last year’s Rs 2 crore-plus levels.

Why? Tech layoffs and fears of an impending global recession will affect the final placement season, which kicks off on December 1 at the old IITs, placement representatives at multiple IITs told us.

Also, top packages are most likely to be for domestic roles, bucking the trend of the past few years when they were largely for international roles, especially in the US.

Top offers: High-frequency trading firm Quantbox Research is likely to make the top offer at IITs this year, with a package ranging between Rs 1.3 crore and Rs 1.9 crore for domestic roles. This will include a base salary of Rs 45 lakh, a sign-on bonus of Rs 10 lakh, and other benefits, with the bonus component spread over two years.

This year, the company will visit IITs in Bombay, Delhi, Kharagpur, Kanpur and Roorkee for infra-quant researcher and quant developer roles.

Last year’s biggest paymaster, Uber, offered Rs 2.16 crore to students at IITs but won’t be hiring for international roles this year.

Microsoft, another top paymaster, is also hiring only for domestic roles, though it has not completely ruled out global offers, according to placement representatives.

Swiggy shuts The Bowl Company cloud kitchens in Delhi-NCR

Swiggy has shut its cloud kitchen brand ‘The Bowl Company’ in Delhi-NCR, sources told us. The company had introduced the brand in 2019, and it continues to operate in Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad.

Why? “The brand was not working as well as expected in Delhi-NCR. The company tried several different models of running it independently, through third-party arrangements but a hard decision was taken to shut it down in the region,” a source aware of the development said.

Another source said Swiggy was trying to become operationally fitter by cutting down on some of its experimental activities.

Origin: The online food aggregator had first piloted The Bowl Company back in 2017 in Bengaluru, where it started offering a select menu for the first time through its own cloud kitchen, pitting itself against pure cloud kitchen players like FreshMenu. The launch of its own brand of cloud kitchens also attracted ire from Swiggy’s restaurant partners.

It also operates other cloud kitchen brands such as Homely and Breakfast Express, and is piloting more labels, including Soul Rasa and Stuffed.

India was the world’s biggest smartwatch market in Q3

India was the world’s biggest smartwatch market in the third quarter of 2022, thanks to highly affordable local products and the festive season demand, according to data from research firm Counterpoint.

Infographic Insight: According to the data, India’s share of the global smartwatch market grew to 30% in July-Sept, more than North America’s (24%) and China’s (16%).

Volumes in India have been led by local brands such as Noise and Fire-Boltt. Growth in the quarter stood at 171%, while China’s fell 28% thanks to strict covid restrictions and the broader economic downturn.

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• Tech-enabled pet care startup Vetic said it has raised $3.7 million in a seed funding round led by investor Lachy Groom. The round also saw participation from renowned angel investors, including Utsav Somani (partner, AngelList India), Nitin Saluja (founder Chaayos), Shiva Singh Sangwan (founder, 1947 Rise), Revant Bhate (CEO, Mosaic Wellness), and Manu Gupta (founder, Blue Lion VC).

Today’s ETtech Top 5 newsletter was curated by Zaheer Merchant in Mumbai. Graphics and illustrations by Rahul Awasthi.