Contract manufacturing giant Foxconn has reportedly increased iPhone 5s production to a record 500,000 units per day, suggesting strong sales of the device ahead of Christmas.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the production boost came after officials at Apple complained of three to five week waits between when devices were ordered and when they shipped.
In response, Foxconn boosted production at its factory in Zhengzhou, and now operates 100 production lines at full capacity around the clock, with 300,000 employees in total working on iPhone 5s and its components.
The production boost was partly at the expense of production lines dedicated to the iPhone 5c, with shipping times for the 5s now down to three to five business days.
An executive at Foxconn is quoted as saying the iPhone 5s is more labour intensive than its predecessors, requiring 600 workers per production line.
“We have been churning out about 500,000 iPhone 5Ss every day, the highest daily output ever,” a company executive said.
“For the iPhone 5c or the iPhone 5, we only have 500 workers per production line as the assembly procedure is less complicated. Although the market had concerns over demand for the new iPhone before its launch, our Zhengzhou site’s production capacity for iPhones has continued to grow over the past two years.”
Andrew Sadauskas is a former journalist at SmartCompany and a former editor of TechCompany.
