Apple’s biggest supplier Foxconn may increase workforce at India plant by four times – Times of India

Apple‘s biggest supplier Foxconn seems to be betting big on India. According to a report in news agency Reuters, the Taiwan-based original equipment maker is planning to quadruple the workforce at its iPhone factory in India over two years. The report quotes two government officials with knowledge of the matter. The report says that the production disruptions at the company’s plants in China due to the country’s strict Covid rules is the reason.
Recently, videos that showed thousands of people holding suitcases walking along the city streets and highways of Zhengzhou in China went viral on the internet. Reports say that they were workers from Foxconn who were fleeing the company’s compound. The videos that went viral showed some scale barbed-wire fences to escape; others walked miles to get home. The employees are said to be escaping from the “closed loop” system induced by China’s Zero Covid policy, in which they are asked to sleep, live, and work within a designated area isolated from the outside world. This wasn’t the first lockdown at a Foxconn factory. The company’s facilities across China suffered production hits several times this year owing to government-enforced lockdowns. These disruptions forced Apple to lower its forecast for shipments of the premium iPhone 14 models this week, dampening its sales outlook for the busy year-end holiday season.

How China lockdowns have hurt Apple
Covid-19 restrictions have temporarily impacted the primary iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max assembly facility located in Zhengzhou, China. The facility is currently operating at significantly reduced capacity. As we have done throughout the pandemic, we are prioritizing the health and safety of the workers in our supply chain.
We continue to see strong demand for iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max models. However, we now expect lower iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max shipments than we previously anticipated and customers will experience longer wait times to receive their new products. We are working closely with our supplier to return to normal production levels while ensuring the health and safety of every worker.

Opportunity for India
Foxconn now plans to boost the workforce at its plant in India to 70,000 by adding 53,000 more workers over the next two years, as per the report. While the size of the plant in Tamil Nadu is comparatively much smaller, it is said to be central to Apple’s efforts to shift production away from China. In September this year, Apple started manufacturing iPhone 14 models at a factory outside the city of Chennai. This is the first time ever that Apple has based production of its newest smartphones in India, marking a major shift in its manufacturing strategy.
Foxconn opened the India plant in 2019 and has been ramping up production. According to the Reuters report, a person in Taiwan with knowledge of the matter said that Foxconn was expanding its operations in India to increase its capacity for basic models and to meet Indian demand. “We are gradually increasing our production scale there,” the person said.