Unprecedented rain and flooding in China’s Zhengzhou, which houses the biggest iPhone manufacturing facility in the world, sparked concerns of a disruption in the global supply chain. Zhengzhou in Henan province, popularly referred to as the iPhone city, experienced record-breaking rain of 457.5 mm (in 24 hours) on July 21. Over a lakh people had to be relocated, as per Bloomberg.

The iPhone manufacturing plant belongs to Apple Inc's largest supplier and contract manufacturer Foxconn, which is owned by Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. The plant assembles iPhones after receiving components from across China and the rest of the world.

‘No Direct Impact’

Foxconn informed CNBC that its operations had not been affected by the floods and claimed there was “no direct impact.” The company added that it was closely monitoring the situation and had activated an emergency response plan as flood control measures.

Apple Inc CEO Tim Cook said that they empathised with the affected and Apple will donate relief aid, as per his post on Weibo, the Twitter-equivalent of China.

However, Chinese media reported that the Foxconn Technology Group asked thousands of workers at two of its three factories to take the day off even as work continued in the largest factory. The total workforce is more than 2.5 lakh and at times it exceeds three lakh.

Foxconn assembles half of the California-based company's smartphones, in addition to iPads and smartwatches, in this city of one crore people. The daily production capacity of iPhones is 50,000 units.

Foxconn was planning to ramp up production just before the launch of Apple’s latest devices towards the end of 2021.

Apple's two major contract manufacturing partners are Foxconn and Wistron. Pegatron is a new entrant in iPhone assembly and made about 30 percent of the iPhone 6 orders in its Chinese plants.

Apple Inc asked contract manufacturers to factor in around nine crore next-gen iPhones (including 5G) in 2021 vis-a-vis 7.5 crore units earlier, Bloomberg reported.

Foxconn is Apple's longest-running partner and assembles the majority of Apple's iPhones in China though it maintains factories in countries across the world, including Thailand, Malaysia, the Czech Republic, South Korea, Singapore, and the Philippines.

(Edited by : Shoma Bhattacharjee)

First Published:Jul 22, 2021 5:32 PM IST