Taiwan’s Foxconn, Apple’s largest supplier, invested 180 billion won in a factory in Shanxi Province amid production disruptions at its Zhengzhou factory in China.
It is an analysis that the company is trying to diversify its production facilities in China along with expanding overseas factories.
According to Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post (SCMP) on the 4th, Foxconn announced on the 2nd that it has invested 1 billion yuan (about 186 billion won) in the Taiyuan factory in Shaanxi Province.
Foxconn said it was a “long-term investment” and did not disclose details.
Established in the early 2000s, the Taiyuan plant mainly produces electronic components, mobile communication systems, smart phones, and digital cameras.
Foxconn operates seven factories in China, including Taiyuan, Henan and Jiangsu.
Among them, the Zhengzhou factory in Henan Province is the world’s largest iPhone production base, employing more than 300,000 workers during peak times such as the Christmas holiday season.
Currently, the Zhengzhou factory, which is responsible for 80% of the iPhone 14 and 85% of the iPhone 14 Pro, is suffering from a severe labor shortage due to the spread of Corona 19 and wage dissatisfaction.
Accordingly, Mingchi Kuo, an analyst at TF Securities, an Apple analysis specialist, estimated in a report late last month that shipments of the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max in the fourth quarter would be between 70 million and 75 million units, a decrease by around 20% of previous expectations.
Citing sources, Taiwan’s Central News Agency said iPhone shipments could drop by up to 30 percent more than originally expected due to unrest at the Zhengzhou factory.
Foxconn’s Zhengzhou factory offered to pay an additional bonus of 21,500 yuan (about 3.99 million won) for two months from this month if workers who left the company after January 2018 return to the factory amid a labor shortage.
In the midst of this, Foxconn is also accelerating the diversification of overseas production bases.
On the 2nd, Foxconn announced that it would invest 58.98 million dollars (about 76.8 billion won) in a subsidiary in the Czech Republic that operates a factory that produces screens, smartphones, and cloud servers.
Foxconn previously invested $300 million (about 390 billion won) to build a new Apple factory in Vietnam last August.
/happy news
