Foxconn’s first U.S. facilities could open as early as next year

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iPhone sales drive Apple’s biggest supplier to big profits
Foxconn is headed to Wisconsin.
Photo: CBS

Apple manufacturer Foxconn will reportedly build three facilities in Wisconsin as part of its sprawling $10 billion, 1,000 acre campus, dedicated to creating LCD displays.

While the facility is on track for 2020, Reuters claims that the three new facilities could be open as soon as next year.

They will include a back-end packaging line, high-precision molding line, and an end-device assembly line. The three facilities will require a total investment of less than $1 billion, says Louis Woo, special assistant to Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou. In turn, they will produce a percentage of the 13,000 jobs that Foxconn has said its $10 billion campus will ultimately create.

Wisconsin’s state Assembly last week voted to approve a bill that will offer Foxconn a $3 billion incentive package for its new plant. The bill must now go to the state Senate for joint finance approval. A final decision will be made in September, with land survey work beginning immediately if final approval is given.

Bringing manufacturing back to the U.S.

Wisconsin was one of a number of states that Foxconn considered as the location for its first U.S. factory. Others reportedly included Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Texas, all of which were chosen because — in Foxconn CEO Terry Gou’s words — “they are the heart of the country’s manufacturing sector.”

The move to the U.S. has been linked with President Donald Trump’s bid to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. Apple’s Tim Cook has previously claimed that China makes a lot more sense as a manufacturing hub for Apple — not just because labor costs are significantly less, but because of the country’s great number of skilled workers, too.

This was a view echoed by Cook’s precursor, Steve Jobs. When answering a question in 2010 from President Barack Obama about the shuttering of U.S. factories in favor of overseas production, Jobs said, “Those jobs aren’t coming back.”

Foxconn has said that producing displays in the United States makes sense because it will save on shipping from China to the U.S. market.

What do you think of Foxconn’s arrival in the U.S.? Leave your comments below.

Source: Reuters

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