Hon Hai Precision Industry Co’s (鴻海精密) production lines in Zhengzhou, China, are still running normally despite a new lockdown in the city amid a spike in COVID-19 infections, Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua (王美花) said yesterday.
Yesterday, authorities placed Zhengzhou’s population of 12.6 million people under a one-week lockdown that prohibits them from leaving their housing compounds.
Zhengzhou has also ordered that schools hold classes online, and that public and private-sector employees work from home.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
The city implemented lockdowns in several districts last month, as well as earlier this year.
Speaking with reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee, Wang said that lockdowns in several of China’s manufacturing hubs have disrupted industrial supply chains and the delivery of raw materials.
However, Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), is still rolling products off its lines in Zhengzhou thanks to a so-called “closed loop” scheme, in which the employees live and work on the company campus, Wang said, after the ministry checked with the company.
The lockdown in Zhengzhou has raised concerns over iPhone production as Hon Hai’s Zhengzhou campus is one of the most important production bases for Apple Inc, which unveiled the latest iPhone SE in March.
Analysts have said that the Zhengzhou campus mass produces the iPhones, while Hon Hai’s production hub in Shenzhen develops and introduces new iPhone models.
Before the lockdown, media reports had said that Hon Hai launched a massive recruitment campaign in Zhengzhou, as Apple’s iPhone 13 series has been popular with consumers.
Hon Hai also used the recruitment drive to prepare for the production of the iPhone 14 series, which is expected in September, they said.
The reports quoted South Korea’s The Elec as saying that Apple had increased production of the larger iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max by about 10 million units for the second quarter.
Hon Hai is the largest assembler of the two iPhone 13 models.
The company has more than 1 million workers in China.
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