Apple: iPhone manufacturing disrupted, deliveries will be “lower”

iPhone 14 Pro shipments will be “lower than expected” after a factory lockdown in China linked to anti-Covid restrictions, Apple has warned, bad news as the holiday season approaches.

Apple said the main iPhone production site in Zhengzhou (central China) “is currently operating with significantly reduced capacity” since the discovery of a cluster of positive Covid-19 cases.

Customers will have to wait longer to receive their new products.

“As we have done since the start of the pandemic, we are prioritizing the health and safety of workers in our supply chain,” adds the apple brand.

Revise the numbers down

The Taiwanese group Foxconn, Apple’s main subcontractor, has been facing an increase in Covid-19 cases since October at its huge Zhengzhou site, the largest iPhone factory in the world.

Foxconn announced in a press release to expect worse than expected results for the end of the year.

“The group’s outlook for the fourth quarter was initially ‘cautiously optimistic’ but due to the pandemic affecting some of our operations in Zhengzhou, the company will revise its figures downwards” this outlook, the company said. Taiwanese.

The company did not specify theextent of the impact of confinement on its financial results. It will publish its results for the third quarter on Thursday and will hold a telephone meeting with investors on this occasion.

Foxconn has also announced on the social network WeChat new measures for its employees, in particular a “sanitary bubble” between the dormitories and the factory.

Employees who continue to work will be grouped in three dormitories, the group said.

First confined, hundreds of employees exasperated by their living conditions fled the factory in disaster last week.

Other Foxconn production sites, not confined, are temporarily requested elsewhere in China, in particular in the province of Guangdong (south), the manufacturing base of the country, according to Ivan Lam, analyst for the specialized firm Counterpoint.

“However, ramping up production takes time” and the overall output won’t be on target anyway, he points out.

According to calculations by the specialist firm TrendForce, Apple will produce 2 to 3 million fewer iPhones this quarter because of the epidemic rebound in Zhengzhou, out of an estimated target of 80 million.

“All of this confirms Wall Street’s fears about Apple for this quarter, and will be a burden this week for technology stocks,” said analyst Dan Ives of US investment firm Wedbush Securities.

Source: © 2022 AFP

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