Foxconn resumes work, beats expectations in China

Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics maker, has most of its production in China, where many of its suppliers are also located. As China was the epicenter of coronavirus outbreak, several companies had to stop production to contain the same.

The Taiwan-based company, which assembles Apple’s iPhones, in February, suffered its biggest monthly drop in revenue in about seven years as the outbreak brought the revenue very low. There was a concern regarding the shortage of supply of low budget iPhone coming in April. Even the upcoming iPhone 12 serieswhich is due later this fallwas expected to have supply issues.

Now Terry Gou, founder of Apple’s major manufacturing partner Foxconn, said on Thursday that resumption of production at its factories in China had “exceeded expectations” after a long halt due to the outbreak that had disrupted the supply chains.

“In the United States, what we are worried about is the market. If production was resumed quickly but consumers stop spending... that would be key to the economic recovery,” he said.

Earlier, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook had said in a conference that China has been able to contain the outbreak very well and that he is positive about the resuming of the production line at the earliest. Looking at the production exceeding the expectations, it is unlikely that Apple’s sales would get affected.