Apple leases new office space in India’s Silicon Valley

Apple in India has signed a 10-year lease for several floors across a brand new, purpose-built office space situated in the central business district of Cubbon Road, Bengaluru.

Apple takes hold in India’s Silicon Valley

Local reports claim Apple will fully occupy three floors and partially occupy two additional floors of the building.

Under the deal, rent will increase 15% evert three years. Apple is committed to the space as it is locked in for five years, but the lease forbids the landlord from renting additional space to Apple competitors.

Alphabet, Microsoft, Samsung, Xiaomi, Amazon, Huawei, Netflix, Facebook, Spotify, Baidu and Tencent all named as such on the lease agreement.

What will Apple use the space for?

The reports tell us the office will become its “global capability centre” which makes it sound like an operations-focused property, likely managing Apple India and its components supply chains.

Bengaluru is India’s Silicon Valley — and rents have doubled

Apple is going in hard and fast in India, where it intends to manufacture a quarter of all iPhones by 2025, rising to 50% after that. On this mission it continues working to convince India’s government and its own suppliers to invest in manufacturing there.

India’s Silicon Valley, Bengaluru is a hotbed of tech industry activity at present. It is home to over 1.5 million workers, but as Apple and other tech firms intensify activity there rents have nearly doubled across the last 12-months turning the city into India’s hottest residential market.

Foreign technology workers moving to the area for their business report incredible complexity getting housed, while home building during the pandemic slowed to a crawl. Local experts predict it will be as many as four years before property supply gets close to demand.

Demand for office space in the area is also peaking, it is currently India’s most active office space market.

What does this mean for Apple? It seems likely the company will need to distribute its key office spaces across India, rather than focusing all its efforts in Bengaluru.

Look ma, they are 3D printing a building outside my house! @peakbengaluru pic.twitter.com/GVrRoC0b9u

— Marisha Thakur (@MarishaThakur) April 6, 2023

However, Apple staff taking positions there may want to take a look at the new post office building currently being constructed in Bengaluru. It is the first post office building in India to be made with 3D printing.

In other recent news from India:

• Pegatron in talks to open second iPhone factory in India
• Apple India: iPhone manufacture climbs, stores about to open
• Apple wants new working laws in India.
• Apple isabout to open its first retail storesin India.
• Foxconn plans tobegin AirPods productionin India.
• New Indiasmartphone security proposalsmay cause problems for Apple.
• India’schanged labour lawsfor Foxconn in one region.
• Apple has decided to change its global sales structure, elevating Ashish Chowdhary to lead Apple’s teams in India.
• Apple VP Lisa Jackson gave an extraordinarily insightful interviewin which the company promised to make big investments in carbon neutral supply chain development in India.
• Apple also announced it will work with NGO Frank Water to improve water managementin India and Bengaluru.
• More recently, a senior executive of an Apple partner called Goertek made news when he suggested Apple is pushing really hard to get suppliers to set up manufacturing in India.
• That same executive made headlines again a few days later when he suddenly resigned with immediate effect.
• Apple supplier Foxconn announced a massive $700 million investment in building a new manufacturing facilityat about the same time.
• That’s raising some friction in China, where Foxconn had to deny claims distributed on social media that the company is dismantling its existing production linesin China’s Shenzhen.

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