Apple's latest iPhone models are struggling due to weak demand, but two major Asian suppliers picked up the slack and posted strong sales last month. The iPhone XS and the iPhone XR can't generate significant sales. The mobile industry appears to be oversaturated, and consumers are hanging onto their smartphones longer than ever before. Still, that hasn't hurt two of Apple's longtime...
Foxconn, one of Apple’s biggest manufacturing partners, said on Wednesday it’s planning to expand its current US operations. The news comes on the heels of a document spotted during a recent meeting between SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son and President-elect Donald Trump. On the document, SoftBank said it would invest $50 billion in the US over the next four years, potentially creating 50,...
The PlayStation 4 has been getting nothing but good press since it's showing at E3 this year, but this is a scandal I don't think Sony wants anything to do with. Several Chinese students have stepped forward and alleged that they have been forced to build PlayStation 4's for an internship at Foxconn's factory in Yantai. Over 1,000 students from the Xi'an Institute of Technology were...
Microsoft announced on Wednesday that it has entered into a new agreement with Hon Hai, the parent company of Foxconn, in which Hon Hai will license Microsoft's patents. The technology in question involves devices that run Chrome OS and Android, and Hon Hai has agreed to pay Microsoft royalties. Hon Hai and its subsidiaries manufacture more than 40 percent of all consumer electronic...
“What’s the ‘CSR?'” you ask? It stands for “Corporate Social Responsibility,” and it’s what companies build into their own charters in order to self-regulate and ensure ethical liability. Basically, it’s a self-formed mandate that indicates that the company in question will not practice bad stuff, like child labor. It was recently revealed that Foxconn, the factory that makes and...
A new investigative report describes a factory that manufactures Samsung products as a place of squalor, full of abused and underage employees. According to China Labor Watch, student laborers, many drafted from high school, “amount to 80% of the total workforce in the factory.” And we thought Apple’s factory conditions were bad. An exhaustive 31 page report documents a behind the...
The Fair Labor Association just published its findings from a near month-long investigation of three of Apple’s factories in China that are operated by Foxconn. “The Fair Labor Association gave Apple’s largest supplier the equivalent of a full-body scan through 3,000 staff hours investigating three of its factories and surveying more than 35,000 workers,” The Fair Labor Association’s...
If you don’t like a company’s business practices, don’t support them. Don’t buy their products. Try to get them to change their business practices. Write letters and comments and blog posts making your case. Protest outside of their stores. Speak your mind. Convince your friends to do the same. Do whatever you think necessary and right to get your point across (though I’d implore you to...
If the Nightline report on working conditions at Foxconn seemed a little too clean for you, there may have been a reason for that. AppleInsider spoke with Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) project officer Debby Sze Wan Chan about recent happenings at Foxconn leading up to the Nightline report as well as the FLA (Fair Labor Association) inspection. Chan...
Tomorrow night ABC's Nightline will be taking a look behind the scenes of a Foxconn plant in China where Apple products are assembled. While you're certain to see tons of ads on TV for the episode (especially tomorrow), ABC released this teaser video today offering a preview of what's in store.