The unrest at the Foxconn factory comes amid country-wide protests against the nation’s zero-Covid policy.
American consumer tech giant Apple could see a production shortfall of around six million iPhone Pro models this year, according to a Bloomberg report. The news comes amid the ongoing unrest at a Foxconn plant in China’s Zhengzhou city as workers protested against the delay in bonuses, food shortages, and poor living conditions caused by the stringent Covid restrictions in the country.
Further, since it’s a developing matter, the estimates are bound to change but if lockdown restrictions in the country continue for a few more weeks, then iPhone production could face a further setback. The Bloomberg report further stated that Apple has lowered its overall production target to about 87 million units from 90 million units earlier.
The shortage is mostly restricted to the iPhone Pro models, while the regular iPhone 14 is in stock. One probable reason could be plain vanilla models are also manufactured in other countries like India, while Pro models are manufactured in specific countries like China. According to a report by Counterpoint Research, as read on CNBC, “customers who ordered the phones last week could expect to wait 37 days for delivery, the longest wait time since the models launched.”
Several workers have fled the Foxconn factory that host as many as 200,000 employees amid the unrest. Foxconn has started new hires with the help of the government and is attracting old employees to come back by offering them lucrative bonuses.
The tumult at the Zhengzhou complex, also known as the iPhone city, comes amid country-wide protest against the nation’s zero-Covid policy. China is seeing a rise in Covid-29 infections and that has prompted movement restrictions and even lockdowns in several major cities.
Asia’s largest economy reported a fifth straight daily record of 40,347 new coronavirus infections on November 27. While this number is low when compared to several other nations that have reopened much of their economic activities, Bejing has stuck with its zero-Covid policy citing it as a necessary tool to prevent overwhelming the healthcare systems.
