Apple will in future rely on Vietnam as the second central production location in Asia. According to reports from last autumn, the efforts are now taking shape. The Group’s main contract manufacturer, the Taiwanese producer Foxconn alias Hon Hai Precision Industry, will build a large factory for a total of 270 million US dollars.

Foxconn founded a new subsidiary called Fukang Technology, which is responsible for the construction. According to the news agency Reuters the building permit from the Vietnamese state is now available.

Foxconn picks up billions Production is to be built in Bac Giang Province. Foxconn had previously invested $ 1.5 billion in Vietnamese production facilities, and more 700 millions are expected to flow in soon. In addition, according to a government announcement, 10. 000 to hire additional local workers.

The plan is for Fukang Technology to produce a total of 8 million notebooks and tablets per year. Although it was not explicitly stated that these are for Apple – hardly any other company purchases such quantities. In addition, there have been rumors for months that Apple has asked Foxconn to move parts of production from Vietnam to Vietnam. Although the number is still significantly lower than the output from Chinese factories, it would be a quite remarkable start.

Risks in China The dependency on China as the main production location is increasingly a risk for the group, reports of a relocation of parts of production have been circulating for a long time. Apple always emphasizes that the supply chain is already spread across many different countries, but a large part of the final assembly – including the iPhone – still takes place in China. In addition, there is a strong concentration of suppliers there who deliver the central components for iPhone and Co.

In Vietnam, in addition to MacBooks and iPads, AirPods are already manufactured – more precisely the Pro models. This is done by the paver Luxshare. Incidentally, this is also located in Bac Giang. However, there was recently criticism of the working conditions, which apparently did not meet Apple’s standards.

(bsc)