How China’s Luxshare, founded by a Foxconn factory worker, rose to become Apple’s iPhone Pro assembler
- Shenzhen-based Luxshare Precision is reportedly about to clinch a large premium iPhone order from Apple, breaking Foxconn’s dominance in the industry
- Founded in 2004 by former Foxconn factory worker Wang Laichun and her brother, Luxshare has risen to become one of Apple’s most important Chinese suppliers
Luxshare Precision Industry Co, a mainland Chinese electronics manufacturer, is reportedly set to sign its largest premium smartphone contract ever with Apple, a surprise gain against bigger Taiwanese rival Foxconn Technology Group, showing the Shenzhen-based company’s growing prowess since its founding nearly two decades ago.
Apple will be entrusting Luxshare with the assembly of more premium iPhones after it tapped the Chinese firm late last year to produce a small number of iPhone 14 Pro Max in Kunshan, a city near Shanghai, as Foxconn’s factory in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou stumbled under a Covid-19 outbreak and staff exodus, the Financial Times reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the situation.
Until a recent series of mishaps at Zhengzhou, Taipei-based Foxconn – formally known as Hon Hai Technology Group – had been tasked with assembling all of Apple’s latest iPhone Pro models.
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Luxshare, also a main supplier of Apple’s AirPods wireless earbuds, was co-founded by Wang Laichun, 55, who hails from Shantou city in southern Guangdong province.
After graduating from junior high school in 1988, she joined a small factory established by Foxconn in nearby Shenzhen, becoming one of the first one hundred workers that the Taiwanese company hired on the mainland.
After 10 years assembling cable connectors at Foxconn, Wang left and established an electronics company with her brother in 2004 that would later become one of the most formidable business competitors to her former employer.
The company initially supplied cord connectors and other components to Foxconn. It went on to expand its business empire through a series of acquisitions, including the purchase of Kunshan United Tao Electronics Co in 2011, which marked its first entry into the prized Apple value chain, building cable connectors for MacBooks and iPads.