A new report this morning confirms that the world’s biggest iPhone assembly campus, on the outskirts of the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou, is operating normally despite lockdowns and mass Covid-19 testing in the area that began last week, the official Henan Daily reported.
A surge in COVID infections in Shanghai led to extensive disruptions there, and Zhengzhou’s decision late Friday to implement a quarantine raised concerns that Foxconn Technology Group’s facility may have to limit operations. The sprawling assembly site’s importance to Apple Inc.’s smartphone supply chain has earned the locality the nickname of iPhone City. Local authorities on Monday morning ordered a fresh round of mass testing.
“Production at the Foxconn campus is proceeding well with some 200,000 workers,” the newspaper said, citing Foxconn managers within the compound. The Taiwanese company is cooperating with local government and putting measures in place to ensure worker safety. “The supply lines haven’t been affected by COVID.”
Many factories across China’s electronics manufacturing hubs of Shanghai, Kunshan and Suzhou have either halted operations completely or are only able to maintain partial production due to stringent restrictions on personnel movement and logistics. For more on this, read the Bloomberg report.
In related news, it’s being reported that Hon Hai’s Apple iPhone foundry will almost double its manpower in order to make up for production losses at the Shanghai, Suzhou and other iPhone plants.
The Economic Times in India reports that Foxconn Hon Hai, the Taiwanese contract phone maker for Apple, plans to nearly double the headcount at its Chennai plant amid higher orders from the iPhone maker that is expected to post record numbers in 2022, people familiar of the development said. The final touches are now being made on worker hostels to accommodate the increase of workers at the plant.
Apple has got the government’s clearance for denotifying 40 acres inside Foxconn plant premises near Chennai, which would allow the company to ramp up production for the domestic market. For more, read the full Economic Times report.
The United Daily News in Taiwan added that “The Hon Hai India factory is located in a special economic zone in India, mainly for the export market. In that light, the increase in production at the Indian plant may be used to make up for any loss of production in Chinese factories.
