Major Apple supplier Foxconn is back to normal operations in the Chinese city of Shenzhen, following a COVID-related shutdown that threatened release dates and fulfillment orders for the iPhone.
The company said today its staff will live and work in a bubble as the city fights to keep this latest outbreak under control.
Foxconn has “basically resumed normal work order and production operations, under the premise of abiding by epidemic prevention policies and strictly implementing epidemic prevention and control.”
This comes as Chinese smartphone giants Xiaomi announce plans to ship more than 200 million phones in 2022, claiming the chip shortage will “fundamentally” improve in the second half of the year.
“In the first quarter, the chip supply crunch is still challenging, but the situation will significantly improve in the second quarter, and such supply woes will be fundamentally solved and even revert in the second half of 2022,” Xiaomi President Wang Xiang told media yesterday.
The company shipped 191 million smartphones in 2021, amidst difficult supply chain challenges.
Foxconn has also said the chip shortage will ease in the latter half of the year, but warns inflation will hit its gross margin in 2022.