Violent Revolt at World's Largest iPhone Factory in China Could Strain iPhone Supply (cnn.com) 90
"A violent workers' revolt at the world's largest iPhone factory this week in central China is further scrambling Apple's strained supply," reports CNN, adding that the revolt is also "highlighting how the country's stringent zero-Covid policy is hurting global technology firms."
The troubles started last month when workers left the factory campus in Zhengzhou, the capital of the central province of Henan, due to Covid fears. Short on staff, bonuses were offered to workers to return. But protests broke out this week when the newly hired staff said management had reneged on their promises. The workers, who clashed with security officers wearing hazmat suits, were eventually offered cash to quit and leave.
Analysts said the woes facing Taiwan contract manufacturing firm Foxconn, a top Apple supplier which owns the facility, will also speed up the pace of diversification away from China to countries like India.
Daniel Ives, managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities, told CNN Business that the ongoing production shutdown in Foxconn's sprawling campus in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou was an "albatross" for Apple. "Every week of this shutdown and unrest we estimate is costing Apple roughly $1 billion a week in lost iPhone sales. Now roughly 5% of iPhone 14 sales are likely off the table due to these brutal shutdowns in China," he said.
Demand for iPhone 14 units during the Black Friday holiday weekend was much higher than supply and could cause major shortages leading into Christmas, Ives said, adding that the disruptions at Foxconn, which started in October, have been a major "gut punch" to Apple this quarter. In a note Friday, Ives said Black Friday store checks show major iPhone shortages across the board.
Ives' note says he believes "many Apple Stores now have iPhone 14 Pro shortages ... of up to 25%-30% below normal heading into a typical December."
CNN also cites an analyst at TF International Securities who estimated on Twitter that more than 10% of global iPhone production capacity has been affected by the situation at the Zhengzhou campus.
Analysts said the woes facing Taiwan contract manufacturing firm Foxconn, a top Apple supplier which owns the facility, will also speed up the pace of diversification away from China to countries like India.
Daniel Ives, managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities, told CNN Business that the ongoing production shutdown in Foxconn's sprawling campus in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou was an "albatross" for Apple. "Every week of this shutdown and unrest we estimate is costing Apple roughly $1 billion a week in lost iPhone sales. Now roughly 5% of iPhone 14 sales are likely off the table due to these brutal shutdowns in China," he said.
Demand for iPhone 14 units during the Black Friday holiday weekend was much higher than supply and could cause major shortages leading into Christmas, Ives said, adding that the disruptions at Foxconn, which started in October, have been a major "gut punch" to Apple this quarter. In a note Friday, Ives said Black Friday store checks show major iPhone shortages across the board.
Ives' note says he believes "many Apple Stores now have iPhone 14 Pro shortages ... of up to 25%-30% below normal heading into a typical December."
CNN also cites an analyst at TF International Securities who estimated on Twitter that more than 10% of global iPhone production capacity has been affected by the situation at the Zhengzhou campus.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Indeed! Chinese citizens are kept bottled up too often. Kick some Winnie!
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I looks like an intentional spoof to me.
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Eventually Xi will have then killed and replaced. Don't get your hopes too high for them.
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What they'd like to do is use the Uyghurs as supplemental slave labor but ther
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You can educate/integrate a people without kidnapping them, putting them into labor camps, and sterilizing them.
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Remind me not to vote for you if you run for higher office. Or county dog catcher.
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They still have some grunts they can pull from other factories. Those other factories will just have to run on empty for awhile.
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Ideal would be for Xi to lose face, and resign in shame. This would reverse the Party's stance on the policies he developed (primarily anti-West and pro-surveillance). If he is killed it would only strengthen the Party's resolve to push forward with the same policy, but they would do so mindlessly without any strong leadership. Absolute disaster for both China and the world in my opinion.
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Ideal would be for Xi to lose face, and resign in shame.
That won't happen: the party is no longer in charge, Xi is. Turns out once you're an unassailable dictator, shame doesn't come nearly so easy.
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He has the support of a majority of the CPC's ruling members. He would have to lose big multiple times in a row before they would drop that support. For example if he invaded Taiwan and failed to take it, that would be seen has a grave failure by Xi. People in China would ask themselves why didn't he simple preserve the status quo of the One China policy?
Is any of this likely? No way. Xi is going to be ruling for another 10 years at least. And someone just like him or worse will be his successor. The obsess
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Given the current birth rate in China, they won't be replaced if they are killed.
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Possibly. They haven't run dry on labor yet. But they are going to have to automate some sectors to keep things cheap.
Re:Warms my heart... (Score:4, Interesting)
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... to hear that people are sticking up for themselves against entrenched powers. Congrats and good luck with the violent revolt.
Yet when that happens in the U.S., suddenly they are the biggest evil that ever was. /s /troll
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Re: Warms my heart... (Score:4, Informative)
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There are protests in Shanghai over the zero COVID policy. Calling for Xi to go. So far it's being tolerated. The police are there but not cracking down.
Well be interesting to see where this goes.
The violent revolt could strain iPhone supplies (Score:5, Insightful)
And more importantly, it could lead to better working conditions for the workers of those factories.
Honestly... This terrible headline says a lot about what the writer's priorities are - and no doubt that of Apple and Apple customers. But I got news for you: people's working conditions are more important than being able to buy the latest overpriced cellphone fast and easily.
Re:The violent revolt could strain iPhone supplies (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The violent revolt could strain iPhone supplies (Score:4, Interesting)
That is NOT going to happen in China. Which means that the strikers aren't going to accomplish very much. Foxconn has already mostly defused the situation by offering the strikers $1500 to quit and leave the site. They'll simply replace those people with other workers that are more compliant.
Re:The violent revolt could strain iPhone supplies (Score:5, Insightful)
But I got news for you: people's working conditions are more important than being able to buy the latest overpriced cellphone fast and easily.
Given the prices and profit margins of Apple's phones, it's a shame they don't build their phones in the US. I don't think it would hurt their numbers that much and this would take care of their image since they have had the reputation of using slave labour for quite a while now...
Re:The violent revolt could strain iPhone supplies (Score:5, Insightful)
this would take care of their image since they have had the reputation of using slave labour for quite a while now...
Yeah, and none of their customers gives a fuck. That's why they keep using slave wages.
You think like a human being who cares about his reputation. Apple is a corporation. By definition, corporation are psychopatic: they don't give a flying fuck about what other think so long as it doesn't hurt the bottom line.
Apple will only move manufacturing to the US if a majority of their customers boycott them long enough for them to believe it's not a temporary fad that will go away on its own. And that's never gonna happen, because most people don't care where their stuff comes from as long as it's cheap, and Apple customers even less because they don't even care that it's not cheap either.
Re: The violent revolt could strain iPhone supplie (Score:3, Insightful)
living on site will be hard to force in the usa an (Score:2)
living on site will be hard to force in the usa and if they pay min wage then they can't take out anything for room and board.
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Given the prices and profit margins of Apple's phones, it's a shame they don't build their phones in the US. I don't think it would hurt their numbers that much
When Apple used to build their computers in the US, it increased the price by ~30% and everyone complained about the price of Apple products.
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Given the prices and profit margins of Apple's phones, it's a shame they don't build their phones in the US. I don't think it would hurt their numbers that much
When Apple used to build their computers in the US, it increased the price by ~30% and everyone complained about the price of Apple products.
IMO, a decent part of what made Apple hardware expensive back then was that they contained so much bespoke silicon, and the R&D costs were distributed across a relatively small number of copies. Intel-based Macs mostly contain off-the shelf chips (with a bit of custom Apple silicon around the fringes), but PowerPC and 68k Macs were basically *all* custom silicon from top to bottom. Even when they used off-the-shelf USB and FireWire silicon, they were quite frequently in the form of cells inside larger
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Yeah, but the R&D of the PowerPC and 68k Macs was an order of magnitude cheaper than Intel. Intel put a LOT of effort into the pentiums with their extended pipelining.
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Yeah, but the R&D of the PowerPC and 68k Macs was an order of magnitude cheaper than Intel. Intel put a LOT of effort into the pentiums with their extended pipelining.
But Intel's high R&D costs were spread across ~82% of the worldwide computer market instead of Apple's 2 to 3%. So even if the CPU costs were an order of magnitude higher, they were spread across ~40x as many devices.
And it's not just the CPU. For a long time, Apple did their own custom northbridge and southbridge, with integrated custom GPU (very limited at the time), Apple-specific controllers for the floppy drives and ADB keyboards/mice, etc., each of which was used in some small fraction of that 3
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Re:The violent revolt could strain iPhone supplies (Score:4, Insightful)
To get that kind of dedication in the US you would need to have a cult like following like Elon does and Tim simply doesnt have the charisma to pull it off.
I once worked for a business that manufactured in the west (medical products - big margins). They had no problem running double shifts (never needed triple while I was there) at short notice, or recruiting staff, and there was no god-like CEO involved. You know what the secret was? Money! Time and a half or double time for extra shifts, and paying a decent wage to start with.
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. But I got news for you: people's working conditions are more important than being able to buy the latest overpriced cellphone fast and easily.
99% of the people in the U.S. disagree with you. They couldn't care less about slave labor as long as they can buy cheap shit.
Re:The violent revolt could strain iPhone supplies (Score:5, Informative)
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people's working conditions are more important than being able to buy the latest overpriced cellphone fast and easily.
It's a shame Greed has demonstrated that flying fuck (stock) position for quite a long time now.
Might look good on the shiny marketing brochure, but behind the scenes I can't even imagine how ruthless you really have to be in to become a trillion dollar company.
Theres a loud clucking sound.. (Score:1)
...of chickens coming home to roost in Cupertino right now.
Re: Theres a loud clucking sound.. (Score:2)
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Nah - they'll just look at other countries to make the iPhones in. Africa has a lot of places with cheap labor.
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Africa? Try Vietnam and India.
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Cupertino and every other American and European corporation that is almost wholly dependent on cheap (a.k.a. slave or forced) labor and production, whether its in China, Vietnam, the Philippines, etc.
It's not like your Android or your Lenovo or your shoes or your clothes or your cheap plastic shit or many of the other items you use on a daily basis don't come from the exact same factories.
I made a conscious effort to start buying from American or European or Japanese sources a few years ago. It's very hard.
Poor, spoiled, rich-country sheepsumers (Score:1, Insightful)
ER MER *GERD*! They may have to save the Earth and produce slightly less e-waste by keeping their old iFondleSlabs for 6-12 months more, or get a phone that's both cheaper and more repairable. The HORROR!
Workers' rights are more important than the ecahhhhnamy or spoilt Western whiners being able to consume.
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Without an economy you have no work, and without Western thought, you have no rights.
No, its not (Score:1)
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> apple has several suppliers. You think theyre fools?
The article says Apple is gradually weening itself off mainland China, but these days it doesn't take much of a disruption to create a back-log. JIT still is common in part because it takes a while to transition away from JIT because it requires purchasing warehouses and trucks, which are in short supply right now because just about every co. is also de-JIT-ing.
Never underestimate the mind's ability (Score:5, Interesting)
to sweep inconvenient facts under the rug.
It was obvious to all concerned that the CCP tolerates/endorses/actively engages in slave labor and doesn't give a flying fuck about human rights.
But that fact is inconvenient. So minds raised and trained in the West can reject it as incongruous with their own values, and therefore must be incongruous with Chinese values, and thus fake news. Nothing to worry about. Also it's easy to make a lot of money. And profit must equal morality.
The last part greases the skids a little, but the main failing is a failure to conceive of a society where people are mere things and if they have things done to them, it doesn't matter. This is so foreign to people born and raised in the West that it's damn near impossible to get people here without direct or family experience of places like Communist China or the Soviet Union to understand that the state over there doesn't stand for regular elections, can't be sued in court, and will have zero qualms about putting you in the gulag or flat out snuffing you out if you get too uppity.
So the direct foreign investment keeps rolling in, the chattering classes convince themselves that it's all good (the CCP useful idiots among them also parrot the idea that it's racist to ask pointed questions) and the government mostly keeps the export licenses and de facto one sided free trade arrangements on the books.
The real reason? (Score:4, Interesting)
Was talking to an Australian Chinese guy last night about this.
He thinks zero covid is not about covid but putting breaks on internal inflation reducing economic activity.
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Was talking to an Australian Chinese guy last night about this.
He thinks zero covid is not about covid but putting breaks on internal inflation reducing economic activity.
Well yes, if large numbers of people don't have money that does tend to break inflation since either stuff sits on shelves or its price is reduced.
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He thinks zero covid is not about covid but putting breaks on internal inflation reducing economic activity.
Conspiracy nutbag ahoy. Hint: There are more effective, and cheaper ways to achieve a drop in economic activity, especially in authoritarian governments.
But the issue here is that zero covid doesn't reduce inflation. The reduction in economic activity promotes stored wealth. As soon as the restriction is lifted people will start spending the extra money they weren't able to spend previously. Unless that is no one in China is getting paid either, at which point everyone would likely be rioting right now, not
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When information is hidden,
free speech forbidden,
conspiracy is all that's left.
From Mord-or where the shadows lie.
Re:The real reason? (Score:4, Insightful)
The West decided to deal with the inflation caused by the extra productivity of work from home by fighting a needless war in Ukraine
Your idea is that "The West" gave weapons to Ukraine and sanctioned Russia because they want to stop inflation?
Turn on your brain, you're not thinking clearly there, mate.
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The cold war rhetoric of "The Right" seems to be that Russia has the permission to invade sovereign countries and re-establish a vast empire across Europe as long as they leave Uncle Sam in peace.
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Don't give in to terrorists (Score:1)
That's why the world is against Russia.
Did Russia give weapons to Iraq when USA invaded Iraq?
We can see quite clearly that Russia doesn't really have any useful weapons it could have helped with.
Heck Putin wanted to join NATO
This is how we know we aren't dealing with rational people.
You and Putin.
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thats what sane countries do. Not interfere with countries whose economy is critical to people living comfortable lives.
Tell that to Russia, plz.
Heck Putin wanted to join NATO but US wouldnt let them in
They told him to apply the normal way, but Putin didn't want to apply.
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West is controlling the economy by squeezing the world economy through sanctions on energy and raw materials from Russia. It causes a lot of collateral pain in countries like India which import most of its oil.
I understand India is a very big importer of Russian oil this year, with very good discounts as well.
https://www.reuters.com/busine... [reuters.com]
Same for China, which is also getting loads of discounted oil from Russia.
So I don't know what you mean by collateral pains in countries like India which is a major Russian oil importer. I understand there are no plans to put China or India under sanctions for buying oil from Russia either. If India has pain points, it's not due to oil from Russia.
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Perhaps somewhat of a conspiracy theory, but without China's zero covid approach lowering overall domestic demand, inflation in the west would be FAR worse than it is right now. So economically China's approach is actually helping the west with their inflation.
I guess we'll see if a phone can be sold for $2000 (Score:3)
or if Apple can do with a normal margin. Just kidding. Pay up.
Priorities, anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Workers are fighting for conditions that don't make them kill themselves, and your concern is how it may threaten the supply of your favorite toy?
Fuck you.
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Workers are fighting for conditions that don't make them kill themselves, and your concern is how it may threaten the supply of your favorite toy?
Fuck you.
Hypocrite is laughing hard at Fuck and You holding a house-shattering rock.
Really think you can keep pretending these conditions slipped and fell off the Foxconn manufacturing line yesterday, and somehow have not been known to all parties involved across many political administrations for a decade or two now, or are you worried about getting a new iPhone?
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Well, if that's what the "proles" are telling me, I'll believe them. If it's just some government outlet who does, I generally don't.
Maybe someone should've told the protesters here that it's not about the Covid crap? Maybe then something could have changed? Instead of people calling them conspiracy loons for believing the bullshit they're told, even though they actually didn't go on the street for the bullshit? But because they were pissed off with different crap, but, and that's the problem, everyone's pi
Ah, the irony (Score:5, Insightful)
A worker revolt the People's Republic of China?
Wait, aren't workers "the people?" They're revolting against themselves in their worker's paradise?
Re:Ah, the irony (Score:4, Insightful)
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A worker revolt the People's Republic of China?
Wait, aren't workers "the people?" They're revolting against themselves in their worker's paradise?
Reminds me of how Putin says Kherson is Russian territory yet every day he's shelling his own people. Or how the claim is Russians and Ukrainians are brothers yet Russia keeps killing its brothers.
Oh, no! (Score:2)
And we need millions more iphones why? (Score:2)
Reading the other comments I see lots of people saying "Apple should build those in the US" or "The Chinese people's rights are more important than more iphones" but the one thing I haven't seen is someone ask WHY?
WHY do we need millions more iphones this year? Did last year's model all of a sudden stop working? How about the ones from two years ago? It's not like Apple has innovated anything here requiring us to dump older phones.
Do SlashDot readers get a new car every year? No. New TV every year? No
Apple's focus (Score:2)
Is on the Brunos of the world. The part of their user base who does not use their phones as a mere fashion accessory and instead to do actual work come second.
With that in mind, they use the cheapest labor to open up Bruno's wallet wide.
Not if it tracks you like Tesla (Score:3)
I would absolutely love to get an electric car. But I will not buy a car where the maker has more control of it than I do and I won't buy or activate anything that requires me to authenticate to someone elses servers and have to ask their permission to be able to control my vehicle and absolutely hell no if it is artificially crippled so that they can sell feature sets back to you. Fuck that and them.
Not just in Foxconn. (Score:2)
There are more riots in many parts of China pass couple of days.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world... [bbc.com]
There was a fire in an apartment building which was covid quarantined, a few days back. 10 people died, suspected cos of slow down with escaping due to exits being blocked.
Probably doesn't help that the World Cup (Soccer) going on in Qatar is being shown in China and people are having a good look at how people outside China are living, with people filling up stadiums, street parties, etc, with no masks or covid
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The CCP will happily machine gun tens of thousands of people in the streets if the need arises. The only way China will change is from the top down and I don't see that happening anytime soon.
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The CCP will happily machine gun tens of thousands of people in the streets if the need arises. The only way China will change is from the top down and I don't see that happening anytime soon.
It will be alot harder to hide things and make things disappear, like the Tank Man from last time.
Everyone has phones, etc now. And no matter how you censor things, things will tend to leak out more now.
Oh noes! (Score:1)