According to Foxconn, which is Apple’s principal iPhone assembler, work has restarted partially at its Shenzhen manufacturing factory in China after the onset of the city-wide lockdown on Monday.
Some production and activities at the Taiwanese corporation’s Shenzhen campus have been reopened, according to Reuters, after the company met regulatory requirements for personnel to live and work in bubble arrangements and adopted a “closed-loop management” system.
A successful usage of the technique was shown during the Winter Olympics in Beijing, when event employees were kept isolated from the public and tested regularly.
According to Foxconn, “some activities were allowed to resume and some manufacturing was carried out,” adding that the system at its Shenzhen plants subjected personnel living there to the necessary health procedures.
According to the statement, “this procedure follows to tight industry rules and close-loop management laws set by the Shenzhen government, and may only be carried out on campuses that comprise both staff housing and manufacturing facilities.”
However, it’s not clear which Apple items Foxconn manufactures at its two Shenzhen factories, although Foxconn is the world’s biggest manufacturer of iPhones. Companies in Shenzhen’s home region of Guangdong say manufacturing shutdowns have slowed delivery, and logistical issues have made it more difficult to send products internationally.
It was Foxconn’s first yearly sales decrease in six years that the company acknowledged on Wednesday, as a lack of processors squeezes smartphone manufacturing and the epidemic in China shows no signs of lessening. Foxconn predicted that 2022 would be “difficult” for the supply chain.
In the last quarter of 2021, Apple reported a $6 billion loss because to a semiconductor shortage, but the company’s forecasts remained upbeat for this year. That’s despite Foxconn’s predictions that the chip scarcity would continue until the second half of 2022.