Foxconn, Apple’s biggest supplier, has secured a new site in Vietnam, as the technology giant aims to shift production away from China after facing major supply-chain disruptions late last year.
Taiwan-based Foxconn has signed a lease with Saigon-Bac Giang Industrial Park to occupy 45 hectares for around $62.5 million to meet operational needs and expand production capacity, according to South China Morning Post.
Foxconn, in an exchange filing, said the lease will run through February 2057.
Foxconn signed a $300 million agreement with a Vietnamese developer in August to build a new factory in Bac Giang, where it already produces iPads and AirPods.
Foxconn is also planning to increase its workforce at its plant in India over the next two years.
The company announced a $500 million investment in its Indian subsidiary in December last year.
Apple CEO Tim Cook, in the company’s quarterly earnings call earlier this month, said that the Covid-19 challenges significantly impacted the supply of iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max and lasted through most of December.
Foxconn’s biggest iPhone manufacturing facility in China, hit by Covid-related disruptions, recovered and production reached about 90 percent of maximum capacity in early January.
Foxconn Technology Group’s facility in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou is the world’s largest iPhone factory, which saw major disruptions in the last three months of 2022 caused by the pandemic controls.
