Apple manufacturing partner Foxconn has shut down its operations in Vietnam for three days as a result of anti-China protests over oil drilling.
China recently began drilling for oil near to the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea. The problem? While the islands are controlled by the People’s Republic of China, they’re claimed by both Vietnam and Taiwan. The disputed ownership has prompted protesters in Vietnam to ransack factories near to Ho Chi Minh City.
Apple is set to start producing all its iPhone batteries on automated production lines starting later this year, according to a report from DigiTimes.
The decision is reportedly related to minimum wages rising in China — combined with labor shortages and high turnovers of staff, who have to be trained to use the manufacturing machinery.
Production of the iPhone 6 is set to begin next quarter.
According to a report in the Commercial Times, Taiwan’s Pegatron Corp — which assembles the iPhone and iPad — is opening up new factory space and recruiting new workers in China to meet the orders it has received from Apple for the iPhone 6.
It is not known how many units would be manufactured by Pegatron, although it is suggested that fellow Taiwanese contract assembler Foxconn will be the iPhone 6’s other primary manufacturer.
iPhone manufacturer Foxconn has signed a letter of intent promising to invest up to $US1 billion in Indonesia.
The $1 billion investment would be carried out in between three and five years, and will cover areas including R&D, electronics software design, manufacturing and assembly of electronic products.
According to a new report, Taiwanese manufacturer Pegatron could be responsible for assembling as many as half of Apple’s next generation iPhone 6 units.
The company is currently assembling the iPhone 5c and iPad mini, but if this news is to believed (it does cite an unidentified source) Apple’s reliance on Pegatron will grow in 2014 — with a new plant planned in Shanghai satellite city Kunshan in anticipation of an iPhone 6 manufacturing deal.
In the wake of the news concerning the 15-year-old employee who died after working on the iPhone 5c production line, Apple supplier Pegatron has revealed the high tech measures it goes to in order to avoid hiring underage workers.
According to Pegatron, the Taiwanese manufacturing firm has been employing facial recognition technology since earlier this year to screen for such an occurrence.
Foxconn Electronics is to begin producing high-resolution OLED smartphone displays starting in 2015, according supply chain sources in Taiwan. The company has reportedly reached a deal with Taiwanese panel maker Innolux, which will undertake the production of the 4- and 5-inch screens.
With the news of the 15-year-old worker dying at the Pegatron factory which makes the iPhone 5c, attention is once again turning to worker treatment at Apple’s suppliers/contract manufacturers.
The news in this case is that Foxconn Technology Group — while making progress improving factory working conditions — is still failing to limit the number of overtime hours its Chinese workers carry out.
Yesterday we told you that iPhone 5s finally had the supply it needed to match demand as we draw near to the holidays. Today we tell you why.
Having had limited availability in its first weeks, it seems that Foxconn has ramped up production of the iPhone 5s by running its factories around the clock — as well as adding more workers to its production lines.
Apple and other tech companies have come under fire for taking all their manufacturing to China, but iPhone-maker Foxconn is looking to turn the tables a bit with its announcement that it plans to build a new $30 million high-tech manufacturing plant in Pennsylvania.
With the new Mac Pro, Apple has once against shifted manufacturing of one of its products to the United States. Could other products follow? Even, say, the iPhone?
Foxconn chairman and president Terry Gou has hinted yes, saying that the company is actively looking into the possibility of setting up factories for high-end smartphone and tablet production in America. But how likely is it?
It has been reported that that Foxconn Electronics will stop production of the iPhone 5c at its Zhengzhou factory in northern China. This isn’t a sign that Apple is severing ties with Foxconn, however, as the workforce previously working on the iPhone 5c will instead be shifted to work on the iPhone 5s production line.
When Apple launched the iPhone 5 last year, it was the most aggressive launch Apple had ever attempted, requiring entire armies of workers to aggressively line-manufacture their most advanced, difficult-to-make iPhone yet. But what was it like to be one of those workers? Businessweek has published a fantastic, haunting investigative report on one Nepalese worker, who almost starved to death after his stint as an iPhone tester.
Apple is reportedly teaming up with new suppliers to boost production of the iPhone 5c and the iPad mini to meet strong consumer demand, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Wistron Corp., a manufacturer based in Taiwan that already produces smartphones for BlackBerry and Nokia, will be tasked with assembling the iPhone 5c; while Compal Communications, which currently works with Acer, Dell, Lenovo, and others, will manufacturer the iPad mini.
Apple has told iPhone suppliers in China to cut iPhone 5c orders for the fourth quarter following lower than expected demand for the device, The Wall Street Journal reports. Foxconn has been asked to cut orders by one-third, while Pegatron will reduce its shipments by 20%, sources claim.
Foxconn, the Taiwanese company that assembles almost all of Apple’s most popular devices, has admitted that it has forced student interns to work illegal shift patterns.
Thousands of students from the Xi’an Institute of Technology were made to work overtime and night shifts at the plant in violation of company policies. And if they refused to do so, they were in danger of losing their degree certificate.
The iPhone 5c is supposed to be Apple’s breakthrough device for the Chinese market – though we’ve heard they’re crazy for gold – so to make the import process quicker and cheaper Apple plans to ship iPhones from supplier Foxconn’s factory directly to China.
Following reports that it was looking to open a new research and development center in Taiwan, Apple is now going on a massive hiring binge in China for talented engineers, having recently put up openings for over 300 new employees in Taiwan on the professional social networking site LinkedIn.
Remember how just a few months ago, Foxconn profits were slumping because — as the anti-Apple brigade hysterically shrieked — the iPhone 5 was a dud, and the iPhone’s meteoric rise in popularity was finally done?
Yeah, well, Foxconn just posted a 41 percent year-over-year increase in profit, driven by strong iPhone sales.
Foxconn is looking to add another 90,000 people to its workforce as it prepares to take on mass production of the iPhone 5S, Focus Taiwan reports. The Taiwanese publication, citing sources in Apple’s supply chain, claims Foxconn has already completed testing assembly of the next-generation device, and is now gearing up to fill the “massive orders from Apple.”
Despite “weaker” orders from Apple during the second quarter, Foxconn managed to post revenue that beat analyst estimates thanks to its increased focus on televisions. The company announced revenue of NT$897 billion ($30 million) over the three-month period, which is 0.6% higher than its second-quarter revenue for 2012, and better than the NT$829 billion expected by analysts.
Apple may or may not be making a smartwatch, but that’s not stopping its partner, Hon Hai Precision Industry – better known by it’s trading name, Foxconn – from making an iPhone compatible watch of its own.
Hon Hai unveiled it’s first smartwatch today at a shareholders meeting. The device can connect wirelessly to an iPhone and provides data on users’ vitals, such as heartbeat and respiration. The smartwatch can even check phone calls and Facebook posts.
Oh, and remember how the iPhone 5S might be getting a fingerprint sensor? Hon Hai chairman Terry Gou said they’re working to add that to their smartwatch in the future along with some other health features.
It’s been a stagnant year so far for new Apple product announcements, and Foxconn, Apple’s biggest manufacturing partner, is starting to feel the pitch: sales are down 12.6 this year, against a target of 15% growth. And in response, Foxconn’s looking to become a lot less dependent upon Apple, who generated 60 percent of the company’s 2012 $100 billion in revenues.
Apple has been praised by Chinese environmental activist Ma Jun for its “aggressive” adoption of progressive environmental policies in China. The Cupertino company, which initially refused to cooperate with the Beijing-based Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE), has gone further than any of its peers in the technology industry, Ma said.
Although Apple has been taking unprecedented measures in the industry to remedy the problem, the truth is that working on an assembly line mass-producing iPhones just sucks. But how bad a job is building iPhones in the grand scheme of things?
The Worst Jobs in the World Matrix, from Lapham’s Quarterly, tries to put the craptitude of working at Foxconn in a broader historical perspective. As you can see, slaving away in an electronics factory for 300 hours per month for $0.76 an hour is a difficult job, but it’s far less disgusting than being a Roman vomitorium attendant, less tedious than being a World of Warcraft gold farmer, less treacherous than being a Japanese subway pusher, and less fatal than being the court food taster for a 16th-century emperor. Perspective, people!
Source: FastCo. Design