This year’s iPhone refresh could be the super cycle Apple’s been waiting for — and manufacturer Foxconn is taking steps accordingly.
As per a new report, the manufacturing giant, which employs around 1 million people in China alone, is ramping up its hiring for people willing to work on the iPhone production line. And it’s offering incentives to help with the recruitment drive!
Foxconn Technologies is starting a new company in California’s Silicon Valley to concentrate on artificial intelligence for factory floor automation.
The plan comes as Foxconn looks for ways to deal with the slowdown of smartphone sales globally, demands for higher wages and a changing workforce that is sidestepping manufacturing. Foxconn assembles thousands of iPhones and iPads and is among Apple’s biggest contractors.
The iPhone is made in China, so most of the profit stays over there, right? Actually, everything in that sentence is wrong.
A new study finds that China makes less than $9 from each iPhone 7. Some of the rest goes to other Asian countries, but the lion’s share is earned by Apple and other U.S. companies.
A groundbreaking ceremony today for a huge Foxconn plant was attended by President Trump. Foxconn is best known for assembling the iPhone, but this plant in the Midwest will produce LCD screens.
Although Apple isn’t directly involved with the production facility, the president still used his speech this morning to applaud the iPhone maker.
Wisconsin will be the site of a new display factory built by Apple manufacturer Foxconn — but local residents will be paying for it.
According to a new report, Wisconsin residents will be coughing up an extra $1 billion on top of the existing $3 billion package of subsidies to attract Foxconn to the area. This “sweetener” will come out of public funds, and will leave the state “on the hook” for 40 percent of the public bonds which finance local expenses should the project flop.
Foxconn could assemble even more iPhones if China eased restrictions curbing factories from abusing overtime, the company’s CEO says.
Billionaire Terry Gou says China’s rules on overtime keep workers from earning more and puts limits on Foxconn’s competitive edge.
Long time Apple manufacturer Foxconn has revealed that its U.S. corporate headquarters will be located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
This is close to its proposed U.S. factory in Wisconsin, which will reportedly be used for producing smartphone displays for clients. Foxconn is building a sprawling $10 billion campus in the area as part of President Donald Trump’s bid to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.
Foxconn has been working with Apple for the past couple of decades, and together they have raked in billions of dollars. However, with smartphone sales plateauing and Apple looking to broaden its supplier base, Foxconn is trying to reinvent itself.
Speaking at a 30th anniversary event for the manufacturing giant on Wednesday, founder Terry Gou described how Foxconn plans to get further into making its own hardware as well as embracing software options like cloud computing. Including one slightly unusual idea.
The Foxconn-owned Sharp Corp. has agreed a deal to acquire an 80 percent share in Toshiba’s PC business. Foxconn currently assembles Macs for Apple, while Sharp is an iPhone display maker.
The move won’t compete directly with Apple, although it puts Foxconn and Sharp in charge of a company which, at its 2011 peak, sold 17.7 million PCs in a year. That number fell to just 1.4 million units last year. Toshiba led the world in producing some of the earliest laptops. Its first laptop launched in 1985.
Apple is known for exerting a lot of control over the manufacturing of its products, and it’s reportedly set to ramp up this control even further.
Beginning with its new MacBook models, Apple will reportedly carry out direct pricing negotiations for the screws and assorted non-key metallic and plastic parts used on its devices, which are currently purchased directly by its contracted supply partners.
The percentage of each iPhone made in the U.S. may increase, claims a new report, suggesting that manufacturer Foxconn’s proposed Wisconsin factory will be used for producing small and medium-sized LCD — and possibly eventually OLED — smartphone displays.
That’s a change in strategy from the original plan, which reportedly focused on large-sized displays for televisions and monitors. Foxconn allegedly made the decision due to cost considerations.
Apple is reportedly going all-in on MicroLED displays, and long-time supplier Foxconn wants to get in on the action!
According to a new report, the Foxconn Group recently took a 7.32 percent share in the company Epileds Technologies, and aims to soon buy anoter 20 million shares to become its largest shareholder. Epileds is one of only a couple of Taiwan-based LED firms that have valuable RGB technological capabilities key to MicroLED technology.
Long-time Apple device manufacturer Foxconn is about to get even closer to Apple — thanks to its acquisition of well-known iPhone accessory maker Belkin.
According to a new report, Belkin International will be bought by FIT Hon Teng, a Hong Kong-based subsidiary of Foxconn for a massive $866 million. The acquisition also includes Linksys and Wemo-branded products and services, as well as the smart home water management company, Phyn.
Apple suppliers have begun shipping the first HomePod units ahead of the smart speaker’s much-anticipated launch. Just 1 million devices are on the way initially. However, Apple is expected to receive as many as 12 million by the end of this year.
Apple has no plans for a major upgrade to its MacBook line this year, a report claims. The last time Apple gave a major upgrade to the MacBook was in 2016, when Apple introduced the Touch Bar.
Provided this is accurate, it may disappoint customers who view the introduction of the iMac Pro as proof that Apple is placing renewed emphasis on its Mac product line.
Samsung may currently be the only company to build OLED displays for the iPhone, but it faces a growing number of challengers going forward, a new report claims.
Not only is LG Display widely expected to become Apple’s second OLED producer in 2018, but other companies including Foxconn subsidiary Sharp and Japan Display are also keen to get a piece of the pie by becoming Apple’s third and fourth OLED suppliers.
Another Foxconn worker committed suicide over the weekend at the firm’s phone assembly plant in Zhengzhou, China, according to U.S.-based Chinese workers’ rights organization China Labor Watch (CLW).
The incident reportedly occurred on Saturday, January 6, when 31-year-old Li Min jumped to his death from the factory. CLW posted video showing the aftermath of the suicide. No explanation for why Li Min took his own life have been made public, although he had only been working and living at Foxconn for a little over two months.
Apple manufacturer Foxconn is planning to adopt artificial intelligence image recognition systems for quality control in its factories, a new report claims.
The tech could help identify faulty circuit boards or other components, thereby improving Foxconn’s efficiency when it comes to assembling devices. The AI system was developed by Andrew Ng, a machine learning expert who has previously headed up major projects for both Google and Baidu.
Respected Apple analyst KGI Securities’ Ming-Chi Kuo says that customer interest in the iPhone X continues to climb — with manufacturers ramping up their production to meet Apple’s demands.
Kuo claims that Foxconn is currently shipping 440,000 to 550,000 iPhone X units per day, representing an enormous increase on the 50,000 to 100,000 units being shipped each day just a couple months back.
Foxconn has wasted little time in responding to reports that high school student interns worked illegal overtime building the iPhone X.
In a statement made to the U.K.’s BBC broadcasting service, a representative for the Foxconn Technology Group said that it has taken, “immediate action to ensure that no interns are carrying out any overtime work.”
Apple has acknowledged that there were instances of students working illegal overtime at Foxconn building the iPhone X — and is taking steps to correct the situation.
Foxconn is joining the HomePod supply chain to help assemble Apple’s delayed smart speakers, a new report claims.
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. — to use Foxconn’s full name — is currently the sole manufacturer of Apple’s iPhone X. However, despite the massive demand for that device, various manufacturing issues with the iPhone X recently caused Foxconn to report its biggest decline in profits in nearly a decade.
That evidently isn’t putting it off working with Apple, however.
Production issues with the iPhone X caused Apple’s biggest supply partner to suffer its biggest decline in profits in nearly a decade.
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., aka Foxconn, posted its latest earnings today and disappointed investors by posting a 39 percent decline in net income compared to the same quarter last year.
The Apple Watch Series 3 experienced a 50 percent sequential increase in sales over the July to September quarter, and Apple is looking to bring in new suppliers to help deliver on the increased demand.
One of the companies that reportedly wants in? Foxconn, a.k.a. the manufacturer which already builds Apple’s iPhones and iPads, but now hopes for a piece of its wearables business assembly too.
Apple and Foxconn executives will meet later this month to discuss ongoing iPhone X production woes, according to a new report.
Apple operating chief Jeff Williams is planning to sit down with Foxconn chairman Terry Gou, sources say. It’s likely the subject of that meeting will be to solve manufacturing issues that are causing severe iPhone X supply constraints.
