Apple supplier Foxconn’s Covid-hit iPhone plant in China’s Zhengzhou city is virtually back to full production, with its December shipments coming in at roughly 90% of earlier projections.
“Production has almost fully resumed,” a person with direct knowledge of the matter said.
A second person said production was nearly back to normal but that company officials remained cautious over the outlook due to a spike in infections across China.
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“We expect a peak for cases before or after the Lunar New Year holiday,” the person said, referring to the week-long break that starts on January 21. “We don’t know if that will cause any issues.”
Production at at the world’s largest iPhone manufacturing plant was significantly affected late last year after a Covid-19 outbreak.
Thousands of employees left the factory to escape curbs imposed to control the virus. That was followed by a bout of worker unrest over payment issues.
Foxconn has been providing bonuses to entice new hires and persuade current employees to stick around. A company source told Reuters last month that it was aiming for the plant to resume full production around late December to early January.
On Saturday, the government-owned broadcaster of Henan province, where the plant is located, quoted an executive from the factory as saying that the plant’s workforce was currently stable at 200,000 staff and that it had also stabilised its supply chain, enabling production capacity to recover.
The facory is able to accommodate as many as 300,000 workers.
The Zhengzhou plant’s troubles highlighted the difficulties companies and workers had in adhering to China’s zero-Covid regime.
The controversial policy was abruptly dismantled in early December, after a string of protests across China, for a strategy of living with the virus. The move was greeted by widespread relief but has also precipitated a wave of infections across the country.
- Reuters, with additional editing by Vishakha Saxena
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