Foxconn’s ‘iPhone city’ in China lifts production back to 90 per cent as chairman warns of challenging 2023

Name: iPhone 14 delays expected after days of violent protests at Foxconn Zhengzhou factory
Uploaded: 2023-01-03T11:30:09.000Z
Duration: 2 min 23 s
Description: iPhone 14 delays expected after days of violent protests at Foxconn Zhengzhou factory

Production at Foxconn’s Zhengzhou iPhone factory has resumed to about 90 per cent of peak capacity, a manager told Chinese state media

In a New Year’s message, Foxconn chairman and CEO Young Liu said the Taipei-based company may see ‘a more difficult and challenging path’ ahead

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Outside Foxconn’s company building in New Taipei City, Taiwan. Photo: Reuters

Iris Dengin ShenzhenandTracy Quin Shanghai

Published: 7:30pm, 3 Jan 2023

The world’s largest iPhone factory, run by Foxconn Technology Group in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou, is gradually recovering from disruptions caused by the country’s pandemic controls, even as the company chairman warned of more challenges ahead.

In a front-page story on Monday, state media Henan Daily quoted Wang Xue, a deputy manager with the plant, as saying that production had reached about 90 per cent of maximum capacity as of December 30.

“We are updating our clients on a daily basis about production conditions,” Wang said, without naming Apple or any other specific customers. “Orders are good, and production will reach its peak in the coming months.”

02:23

iPhone 14 delays expected after days of violent protests at Foxconn Zhengzhou factory

The factory, which has been rocked by an exodus of tens of thousands of employees and violent workers’ protests amid a Covid-19 outbreak that began in late October, currently employs 200,000 workers, who have been promised up to 13,000 yuan (US$1,880) in monthly bonuses, Wang added.

Foxconn started to offer extra incentives late last year in a desperate move to entice workers who had left earlier, but were not part of the protests, to return. It pledged another 5,000 yuan bonus for employees who agreed to work until late March.

In a New Year’s message, Foxconn chairman and CEO Young Liu said the Taipei-based company “encountered unprecedented challenges” in 2022 and may see “a more difficult and challenging path” in 2023, which will mark the 35th anniversary of Foxconn’s operations in mainland China.

“In the face of the sudden pandemic outbreak this winter, [Foxconn’s] mainland campuses, especially the Zhengzhou campus, were faced with the twofold tests of taking care of our employees’ health and safe production,” Liu wrote.

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