Demand for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus thanks to Apple’s “unprecedented” orders that iPhone manufacturer Foxconn is scrabbling to fill orders.
According to a new report from Digitimes, the Taiwan-based company is on a major hiring spree to fill posts at its plants in Shenzhen and Zhengzhou, China. The only trouble is it’s having a bit of difficulty in doing so, since assembly line work is no longer as attractive as it was previously for Chinese workers.
Apple has given Foxconn record revenues thanks to “unprecedented” orders for its iPhone 6 devices, but Foxconn is trying to spread its wings away from Cupertino.
According to a new report from Digitimes, citing upstream supply chain sources, Foxconn Electronics has been aggressively aiding China-based smartphone clients such as Xiaomi, Meitu, Oppo and Meizu with boosting their sales.
Apple’s manufacturing partner Foxconn is notorious for its empire of iPhone-assembling employees and robots, but the electronics manufacturer is looking to shift gears, by building a dirt cheap electric car, and it’s already investing $811 million to speed up the process.
It looks like Apple manufacturer Foxconn may not be entirely ready to displace its human workforce in favor of robots just yet.
According to a new report coming out of the Taiwanese media, Foxconn’s CEO Terry Gou is disappointed by the company’s current generation of so-called “Foxbots,” which supposedly fell short of expectations in terms of both proficiency and flexibility.
Pre-orders for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus shattered Apple’s previous records and its supplier are still struggling to keep up with demand.
Apple supplier Foxconn has continued to hire more workers to assemble the new iPhone models, reports the Wall Street Journal, but even though they’re already churning out over 500,000 new handsets a day, its 100 production lines operating around the clock in Zhengzhou still can’t keep up.
Apple supplier Foxconn Electronics is reportedly considering legal action against U.K. newspaper The Daily Mail over claims that cleaning agents used in Foxconn’s Shenzhen factory may be to blame for multiple Foxconn employees developing leukaemia.
In its recent report, The Daily Mail says that Apple is investigating Foxconn after a cluster of leukaemia-related deaths among young workers at Foxconn.
At least 13 workers in their late teens and early 20s have been diagnosed with leukaemia at the factory since 2010. Five of these employees have since died, with families and a labour welfare group claiming the disease was caused by exposure to dangerous chemicals used to clean electrical panels.
Foxconn factory employees have leaked the complete dimensions of the iPhone 6, according to iGen.fr, which posted photos of what appears to be Foxconn’s internal software listing the full dimensions for both the 5.5-inch and 4.7-inch iPhone 6.
The two new phones, code named N56 and N61, are expected to be announced next month, and if the leaked specs are right, not only will the 5.5-inch iPhone have more screen than your iPhone 5s, it will also be 60% heavier.
In the past, the chemicals benzene and n-hexane, which are chemicals that make your iPhone screen so shiny, have been said to cause health problems for factory workers breathing in the fume.
But Apple has just announced that as of the iPhone 6, these complaints will be a thing of the past, as they are banning the use of the chemicals across their entire assembly line.
A new report coming of China suggests that the eagerly-anticipated iPhone 6 is currently in the PVT (Product Validation Test) stage of production. During this stage, the assembly line runs at full speed to produce a small number of finished units for quality assurance purposes. If any issues are highlighted at this stage, the production line can be adjusted to ensure that all faults are ironed out by the time mass production begins.
If there are no faults highlighted, Foxconn can begin work producing the “unprecedented” numbers of iPhone 6 units for Apple, ready for its expected September 9 unveiling.
Despite its role as a manufacturer for the eagerly-anticipated iPhone 6, Apple manufacturer Foxconn has announced July as being responsible for its lowest monthly earnings since March 2013.
Surprisingly this comes not long after Foxconn posted record earnings of $131.82 billion for 2013, while company chairman Terry Gou claimed that this year’s earnings would be even greater. Nonetheless the company’s consolidated revenues of just (!) $8.66 billion for the month of July represents a decrease of 17.91 percent on month, and 13.3 percent year-on-year.
So what’s responsible for the drop?
This time on The CultCast: thirsty Germans drink the tears of Brazilian children! Ohhh, sorry. Too soon? Also on the docket: the secret Apple eBay store is back at it and selling iPhones at absurdly low prices; we pitch a great new Siri feature we hope Apple bakes in; a Youtuber gets his hands on the iPhone 6’s sapphire screen, and its incredible durability is hard to believe; plus… GEEKN, the new segment where we divulge whatever gadget or activity we’re currently obsessing over. Stay tuned till the end for that.
Have a laugh and catch up on this week’s best Apple stories! Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below and let the festivities begin.
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We get slammed 24/7 with new Apple rumors. Some are accurate, most are not. To give you a clue about what’s really coming out of Cupertino in the future, we’re busting out our rumor debunker each week to blow up the nonsense.
iPhone 6 rumor season is in full bloom this week with a rash of rumors spilling new details on everything from improved battery life, sapphire displays’ extreme durability, SIM trays, and even the robot army that will help assemble Apple’s newest smartphone.
This week we were also treated to new tidbits on the production schedules of the iWatch and next-gen MacBook Airs, but you’ll have to step right up to our crystal ball to see which of these rumors are the real deal, and which are just a bunch of smoke and mirrors.
The iPhone 6 is one of the most eagerly anticipated iPhone refreshes in years, but just how anticipated it is might surprise you.
Taiwan’s Business Weekly is reporting that Apple has orders at least 68 million units of its new iPhone. To put that in perspective, if true this is twice as large as the order Apple placed for the iPhone 5.
Don’t underestimate the power of having Apple on your side!
Not long after Foxconn announced record earnings thanks to its work on the iPhone, fellow Apple manufacturer Pegatron Corp is predicted to see consolidated revenues of $33.3 billion for 2014, mainly due to shipments of Apple’s next generation iPhone and iPad models.
Yesterday, we reported that Foxconn CEO Terry Gou had promised shareholders that the Chinese iPhone manufacturer was ready to deploy an army of 10,000 robots to help build the iPhone 6.
But while that report seems accurate, don’t expect these so-called Foxbots to completely replace humans on the assembly line. As it turns out, the iPhone 6 is going to require way too much finesse to assemble for a mere robot to do it all.
For years now, Foxconn has been expressing its interest in replacing its workers with robots, raising the possibility that future iPhones could be built with machines. In fact, in December of 2012, Foxconn quietly began testing a program to replace human workers with iPhone-building robots.
But now, it appears that Foxconn is hitting the accelerator on the program. Foxconn CEO Terry Gou has just told shareholders that they will be deploying some 10,000 “Foxbots” to start building iPhones soon.
Having reportedly snagged the bulk of iPhone 6 orders from Apple, Taiwanese manufacturer Hon Hai Precision Industry, a.k.a. Foxconn, has every reason to be happy.
Earlier today it announced record breaking consolidated revenues of $131.82 billion for last year, while company chairman Terry Gou commented that he expects this year’s earnings to be even better.
Interestingly, Gou had some choice words to say about wearables, however — which is slightly surprising given how closely the company’s success is tied to Apple, which is expected to enter the wearables market with its forthcoming iWatch, supposedly coming this October.
Foxconn and Pegatron — the two leading manufacturers set to produce the iPhone 6 — have been on a massive hiring spree as of late.
According to Taiwan’s Economic Daily News, Foxconn will recruit in excess of 100,000 new workers in mainland China to help assemble Apple’s much-anticipated next generation iPhone. It had previously been reported that the company was opening up new factory space to carry out the work.
Rival Taiwanese assembler Pegatron will also be upping the workforce in one of its factories by 30 percent in order to meet the demand the influx of new work will place on it.
Sooner rather than later, Google will be tracking your every move.
The Mountain View search colossus already knows whether you have the flu or are interested in dropping a few pounds, thanks to its mining of your search data and Gmail missives.
Thanks to Google’s recent bargain buy of tiny satellite company Skybox Imaging — a purchase that cost Google just $500 million, or 1/38 what Facebook shelled out for WhatsApp — by 2016, Google may be able to predict market-moving factors like consumer spending and oil prices.
That means Google might be able to foretell when you’ll be waiting in line for the latest iPhone.
It’s that time of year when Apple finalizes its supply chain plans for the next generation iPhone, and if you believe new reports coming out of Taiwan Foxconn is getting the biggest piece of the pie.
While this isn’t exactly earth shattering news, it’s still a bit surprising (and, for at least one company, disappointing) given that Apple has been shifting more and more manufacturing work to rival company Pegatron in recent times. Pegatron has been consistently stealing work by undercutting Foxconn’s prices — although these latest rumors state that Apple may have elected to remain with its long-time manufacturing partner for the bulk of work on the iPhone 6.
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.
