With political tensions between Washington and Beijing at an all-time high, Apple is reportedly considering shifting at least some of its iPhone production to Vietnam. That’s according to reports coming out of the South-East Asian country, which claims that representatives from the US tech giant recently inspected a factory operated by its assembly partner, Luxshare, in the Van Trung Industrial Park (Viet Yen district, Bac Giang) to check its viability for iPhone production.
According to Tang Due Bang, the Foreign Affairs Manager at Luxshare, the Apple team surveyed not only the actual factory but also the living conditions of employees putting up at the on-site dormitories. “The Apple side continually surveyed the workshop of Luxshare … on Iphone production conditions. (They) carefully checked the welfare and safety of workers and put this issue first, especially near the production site. If there is a dormitory for workers, the employees do not have to spend a lot of living expenses and are equipped with air conditioner, water heater, washing machine in the room by Luxshare”, he said.
As things stand now, the living conditions of the workers do not meet Apple’s standards on worker welfare. However, Bang was confident that things will change going forward, following which, the company expects to bag an iPhone manufacturing contract from Apple. The aforementioned facility currently produces wireless earphones, but is on track to make Apple Watches going forward. It currently employs around 28,000 people, but an iPhone contract might increase that to between 50,000 and 60,000, claims the report.
