iPhone manufacturer Foxconn is taking the unusual step of cutting the hours of employees building Apple handsets during the upcoming weeklong Lunar New Year holiday next February.
The planned slowdown follows reports that Apple is cutting orders for the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus by up to 30 percent, which is causing investors to hammer Apple stock.
A somewhat sketchy video showing a supposed iPhone 7 prototype has surfaced online, sparking speculation that Apple will ditch the bezel and physical Home button for next year’s iPhone handset.
There are many who claim that the iPhone 5c, Apple’s plastic-backed “budget” iPhone, was a disappointment, especially compared to the sales of iPhone 6/6s/Plus. Yet rumors continue to circulate that the iPhone 6c will be released next year.
Here’s another rumor to throw on that fire: Supply chain sources within Foxconn are allegedly saying the iPhone 6c is on track for a February 2016 debut.
Apple is seeking out another manufacturer to help build its upcoming Apple Watch 2, according to a newly published report, citing supply chain insiders.
While Apple currently relies on Quanta Computer to build its first-gen wearable device, the company is said to also be speaking with Inventec, Wistron and Foxconn Electronics — all companies Cupertino has previously worked with — to help build its follow-up smartwatch, which is expected to arrive in the second quarter of 2016.
Apple and Foxconn are teaming up to build solar power plants that will ensure its iPhone-manufacturing factories in China run on 100 percent clean energy.
Foxconn has committed to constructing more than 400 megawatts of solar power plants, beginning in China’s Henan Province, by 2018. Apple will also build an addition 200 megawatts of solar projects throughout China, helping offset the carbon produced by the rest of its supply chain.
Samsung has received a multi-million dollar investment from the South Korean government to develop factory robots to help win manufacturing work currently being lost to cheap human labor in China.
Leading iPhone manufacturer Foxconn has failed to secure a stake in a Taiwanese chip company with the potential to earn massive amounts of cash from Apple.
Foxconn had made a bid for a share in Siliconware Precision Industries (SPIL), offering a share swap which would have made it the largest shareholder in the company.
Unfortunately for Foxconn, the proposal was shot down by SPIL’s board of directors on Thursday, who argued that Foxconn, “fails to make a compelling case regarding necessity of the share swap.”
Stop the presses: supply chain companies really, really want Apple’s business.
According to a new report, key Apple manufacturers Foxconn and Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE) are currently battling over control of a third company, Siliconware Precision Industries, a.k.a. SPIL. Why? Because it will help them win more orders from Apple, of course.
iPhone 6s manufacturer Foxconn has posted revenues of $318.4 million for the month of September, largely as a result of Apple’s next-gen handset.
The monster earnings for the month were not only the best month of Foxconn’s year so far, but represented a 30 percent rise from the previous month and an increase of 17.8 percent year-on-year.
And Apple’s main manufacturer is expecting October to be even better!
Apple supplier Foxconn is reportedly cutting costs and widening its margins to keep ahead of the pack as the Chinese smartphone market slows, according to a new report.
China’s surprise devaluation of the yuan is likely to have a massive impact on Apple and its suppliers.
China devalued its currency in an attempt to boost a flagging economy — resulting in the country’s biggest one-day loss in 20 years.
And while some will be celebrating, others (likely including Tim Cook) can’t be too happy about it!
Apple supplier Foxconn has come under fire over the last few years for its factories’ working conditions in China, but the company is now making plans to open up a new Apple plant in one of the world’s other booming nations: India.
The India government has previously blocked Apple from opening any brick-and-mortar retail outlets in the country because Apple don’t manufacture any products in India.
That could be about to change, however, thanks to a recent rumor claiming that Foxconn has been given permission to open new iPhone-manufacturing plants in Maharashtra, the heavily-populated state in the country’s western region which claims Mumbai as its capital.
The factories would benefit from government funding aimed at bringing more manufacturing companies to India.
Foxconn’s CEO Terry Gou is no fan of Samsung. In fact, according to a new report, he’s been trying to use his influence as Apple’s biggest manufacturing partner to get Apple to lessen its dependency on Samsung — while a giving a shot to other companies.
The reason? He thinks Taiwanese manufacturers need to work together to overcome the growing threat of the South Korean tech giant, which could potentially swallow all of their jobs.
Looking for more evidence that China is set to take over from the U.S. as Apple’s biggest market?
According to a report from the Chinese-language news outlet Tencent, Foxconn is currently buying 50,000-60,000 second-hand iPhones per day through worldwide channels, and then selling these on to the Chinese market.
Roughly 80 percent of the iPhones are said to sell through stores in Hong Kong.
Up until now, the majority of iPhones have been built in China, but long-time Apple manufacturer Foxconn could be setting its sights on a new developing market: India.
According to the Economic Times, the Foxconn Technology Group is set to pour money into three new facilities in India — based in the country’s Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, and Andhra Pradesh provinces — with a view to building iPhones for its biggest client.
Having been the subject of Pulitzer Prize-winning reports and BBC documentaries, the questionable standards of conditions at Apple supplier Foxconn’s factories has made the company notorious, while its work building iPhones has made it rich.
But a new tour of the company’s sprawling Shenzhen factory — where the company makes iPads and Macs among other products — is eager to paint a very different picture: one of changing company, more like a university campus, with plenty of educational opportunities, and suicide stats below that of the U.S.
Apple’s doing everything it can to push its brand in China, which Tim Cook is convinced will soon take over from the U.S. as the company’s primary market.
Having recently taken the top spot for smartphone sales in the country for the first time ever, and also beaten out the likes of Gucci and Chanel to be named China’s favorite luxury brand, Apple is now teaming with manufacturer Foxconn to introduce a trade-in program for iPhones — letting customers exchange their older iPhone handsets for credit against other Apple products.
The program is set to go into action next week, on March 31.
A Chinese workers’ rights group released a new report today that sheds light on the deplorable working conditions in factories that assemble the iPhone 6. According to China Labor Watch, on February 3, 2015, Pegatron assembly line worker Tian Fulei died while assembling the iPhone 6.
The hospital labeled the cause of death as “sudden death,” but fellow workers say Tian worked long overtime shifts day after day, which gave his family reason to believe that Tian died from overwork.
To smooth things over, Pegatron reportedly offered the family a measly $2,400 as compensation for their son’s death. Tian’s family of farmers couldn’t afford to pay for an expensive independent autopsy to prove the death was work-related. Eventually they took Pegatron’s next offer of $1,277 for his untimely death.
The Rumor: Your iMacs and MacBooks will be powered by ARM processors in 1 - 2 years/
The Verdict Not likely to happen yet. Ming Chi Kuo, aka “the world’s most accurate Apple analyst” has been wrong a time or two, and I think this is time he’s way off. Ditching Intel chips has been rumored forever. It still doesn’t make sense, as Apple would be sacrificing a lot of processing power for modest battery gains. It could happen in the next five years, but Kuo’s prediction that we’ll see an ARM powered MacBook in the next year sounds too soon to be true.
Foxconn’s new $2.6 billion factory dedicated to building displays exclusively for Apple will supply OLED panels for future iPhones and wearables, according to a report from leading Japanese newspaper Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun.
Long-time Apple manufacturer Foxconn is supposedly working with touch panel company InnoLux to put together an ecosystem, allowing it to produce sixth-gen low temperature poly-silicon films, aimed at entering mass production in 2016.
Tim Cook has told Apple employees he’s “deeply offended” by the BBC’s critical documentary Apple’s Broken Promises that investigated working conditions inside Apple’s supply Asian supply chain.
In an email obtained by The Telegraph from Apple VP Jeff Williams to the company’s workers in the UK, Williams said he and Cook are offended by the BBC’s suggestion that Apple broke promises with workers in the supply chain, and that no other company is doing “as much as Apple does to ensure fair and safe working conditions.”
Williams also countered the BBC’s claims that Apple uses tin sourced through child labor in Indonesia, saying Apple is spearheading the movement to hold the tens of thousands of artisanal miners more accountable, rather than getting out of the country altogether.
The minister of the Cyberspace Administration of China got a sneak peek at the Apple Watch during a recent visit to Apple’s Cupertino headquarters. Photos published by a state-owned website show Apple CEO Tim Cook demonstrating the device to Lu Wei, who also stopped by Facebook’s campus to meet Mark Zuckerberg.
Foxconn has been working to replace its human workforce with robotic “Foxbots” for some time now, but it seems that a 2011 promise by CEO Terry Gou to unleash an army of production robots by the end of 2014 won’t be coming true after all.
According to the Chinese financial publication Jiemian, Foxconn is facing numerous difficulties building robots capable enough to carry out the kind of precision needed for constructing Apple devices. First and foremost is the fact that the bots are simply too clunky to do the work required of them — primarily because they were designed for automotive work rather than for assembling iPhones.
The current crop of bots reportedly have a production accuracy of 0.05mm, making them a little shy of the 0.02mm accuracy needed to build Apple products.
Depending on whether or not you can fulfil what is asked of you, being an Apple supplier sounds like it’s either the best or worst experience imaginable.
In the wake of the crashing and burning of Apple’s former sapphire supplier GT Advanced Technologies, some of Cupertino’s other contractors have pitched in with their take; filling the Wall Street Journal in on a few of the lessons they’ve learned along their roller coaster rides with Apple.
The two biggest take-homes? Don’t make promises you can’t keep, and don’t rely too much on Cupertino.