Apple’s iPhone supply chain takes hit from Xi’s Covid-zero enforcers

Chinese authorities locked down the area surrounding the world’s largest iPhone factory on Nov 2, 2022, after workers fled to avoid a coronavirus outbreak and the resulting restrictions. For now, Foxconn’s plant will keep operating within a ‘closed loop’, or a self-contained bubble that limits contact with the outside world, the company said in a statement on Nov 2. — AFP

With little warning, China locked down the world’s largest iPhone factory on Nov 2, declaring the zone around the Zhengzhou Foxconn Technology Group complex off-limits to combat a local Covid-19 outbreak. It’s the last thing Apple Inc needed.

The abrupt move is expected to further disrupt a factory already grappling with an outcry over an on-site coronavirus outbreak, worker exodus and enforced quarantine. Local authorities said Nov 2 that they’ll sterilise Foxconn’s campus and the surrounding areas in the next three days and send N95 masks to workers, another sign of the government’s tightening grip.