Foxconn now manufacturing 137,000 iPhone 4s per day
updated 10:35 am EDT, Fri September 10, 2010
Production demands expensive hardware
Apple's primary manufacturing partner, Foxconn, is now churning out a tremendous number of iPhone 4s per day, according to the latter company's chairman. Terry Gou notes that the company is producing about 137,000 iPhone 4s per day at its Longhua campus plant in Shenzhen, China. The rate translates into 1.5 per second, 90 a minute and over 50 million a year.
Production of the iPhone 4 requires some extremely expensive hardware, Gou notes. As Apple and Foxconn approached manufacturing, the companies are said to have discovered that the phone's metal frame could only be created with a low-output machine normally meant for prototypes. Because Apple refused to change specifications, Gou ordered over 1,000 of the machines from Fanuc at a cost of $20,000 apiece. Businesses rarely have more than one.
Foxconn has been the subject of serious human rights concerns during the past year. The company was at one point accused of having sweatshop-like conditions, in which people would work virtually non-stop for low pay. These may have been behind a string of suicides. The company has since taken some steps to improve workers' lives, however, such as raising pay and cutting down on overtime.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Aug 2007
That's downright impressive...
>Because Apple refused to change specifications, Gou ordered over 1,000 of the machines from Fanuc at a cost of $20,000 apiece. Businesses rarely have more than one.
Whether the metal frame is a good or bad design decision, there aren't going to be too many other smartphone vendors having exact clones of iPhone 4s in high production quantities. I'd say that only Apple could afford to pull this one off. It appears that cash reserve can be of considerable use in other ways. I sure hope the case design is worth the effort since apparently most smartphones aren't designed with such detail. Usually a cheap piece of plastic will suffice for most vendors.