Apple’s elves in China are going into hyper-drive to meet expected increased holiday demand for the red-hot iPad, a report suggests Tuesday. Foxconn Electronics has added new manufacturing sites able to produce 10,000 additional tablets each day.
The new plants in Chengdu could eventually produce enable Foxconn to produce around 40 million iPads per year, prompting the report to call the inland China factories “a major supply base” for the first quarter of 2011. Apple could sell 15 million iPads in 2010 and start 2011 with a second-generation tablet.
Foxconn, the tradename of Hon Hai Precision Industry, began shipments from Chengdu this month. Taiwan-based trade publication Digitimes terms the stepped-up activity as “mass production” of iPads by Foxconn.
Apple’s manufacturing partner views the Chengdu plants as more than a temporary way to increase iPad production, however. Hit by continued controversy over working conditions at its Shenzhen and Foshan, China plants, Foxconn believes the new inland plants could save on labor costs. Eventually, 50 iPad production lines could be established at Chengdu, according to the report.
