After halts due to worker protests over COVID 19 restrictions in China, Foxconn, the supplier of Apple's mobile devices, says it plans to restore production at the world's largest iPhone factory.
In October, the central China city of Zhengzhou came to a standstill after thousands of workers stalled production due to the government's strict zero-COVID policies. The protests cost Apple billions over the last few months and disrupted supply chains.
Foxconn said on Monday that the epidemic situation is under control, and that the company is making every effort to protect the rights and interests of employees. In addition to reallocating production capacity of different factories, we have started to recruit new employees, and are gradually moving toward the direction of restoring production capacity to normal, the company said in a statement.
The outlook for the fourth quarter is expected to be in line with market consensus, according to the statement. Foxconn didn't give a date for when the factory will return to full production.
According to Reuters, individuals with direct knowledge of the situation inside the company expect full production to resume between December and January.
The fallout from the protests has affected the rollout of the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max models, with Apple announcing that customers will have to wait longer for those models.
Apple plans to move manufacturing out of China to other countries in Asia, such as Vietnam and India.