There is finally some good news for consumers facing shortages of the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max. Thanks to several incidents at Foxconn’s largest iPhone assembly plant in Zhengzhou, China, the factory is expected to turn out as many as 6 million fewer iPhone 14 Pro series models this quarter than expected. A shortage of assembly line workers is to blame.
A series of incidents, starting with China’s COVID crackdown, led workers to flee the Foxconn campus. The contract manufacturer, as China’s largest taxpayer and employer, was able to get the Communist party to recruit new workers and Foxconn tossed in a bonus plan. But soon violence erupted in Zhenzhou as workers clashed with security guards over the factory’s COVID policies and Foxconn’s contract to new workers that delayed bonuses well past the 30 and 60 days Foxconn promised.
Foxconn later apologized to workers for accidentally presenting them with the wrong contracts. But the company also paid off 20,000 workers to quit their jobs and leave the campus to prevent a repeat of the violence. All of this instability has led Apple to admit that fourth-quarter iPhone 14 Pro series production will fall short of expectations. A month ago Apple said, “We now expect lower iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max shipments than we previously anticipated and customers will experience longer wait times to receive their new products.”
Today, a Foxconn source told Reuters to expect the Zhengzhou plant, responsible for the production of about half of the iPhone units assembled worldwide this year, to return to full production late this month or early next month. Foxconn also announced that revenue in November fell 11.4% year-over-year and blamed the COVID crackdown in Zhengzhou.
In a statement, Foxconn said, “At present, the overall epidemic situation has been brought under control with November being the most affected period.” The world’s largest contract manufacturer said that it has been recruiting new workers and has been “restoring production capacity to normal.” And this is good news for those planning to buy a new iPhone 14 Pro or iPhone 14 Pro Max early next year.
The wait times for Apple’s priciest handsets are at “extreme levels” in both the U.S. and China and this was the case even before the problems started at the Zhengzhou factory.
