Foxconn To Lose Out On iPhone 16 Pro Max Orders For The First Time, Luxshare To Receive Exclusivity For Apple’s 2024 Top-Tier Flagship
Foxconn is typically tasked with assembling the ‘Pro’ models for Apple, and according to an earlier report, those plans remain unchanged with the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. However, starting in 2024, Apple’s chief partner is said to lose exclusivity for the iPhone 16 Pro Max, with all orders said to be provided to Luxshare instead.
Analyst claims Apple wants to minimize risk by giving iPhone 16 Pro Max orders exclusively to Luxshare, especially after Foxconn’s Zhengzhou factory incident
For the first time in history, Foxconn has not received NPI (New Product Information) for the iPhone 16 Pro Max. Instead, Luxshare has been granted exclusivity over this model, according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, as he publishes his newest findings on his Medium blog. For those that do not know, NPI is the lengthy process of taking a product from an ideated stage to an actual product that is ready for the mass market.
Luxshare is already a secondary assembling partner for Apple’s iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, and Apple reportedly wants to cut down its risk by giving it the sole responsibility of materializing the iPhone 16 Pro Max. To recap, Foxconn’s Zhengzhou plant is the world’s largest assembling facility and supplies all markets with 70 percent of all iPhone shipments. A series of lockdowns caused by COVID-19 restrictions, followed by riots, lead to a severe decline of iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max shipments in the fourth quarter.
This fourth quarter also happens to be Apple’s holiday quarter, which is a period where the technology giant enjoys a major revenue influx, and it lost out on billions due to this setback. Foxconn has still received the NPI for the iPhone 16 Pro and regular iPhone 16, while Pegatron has received it for the iPhone 16 Plus. Since Apple believes that Luxshare’s production capabilities have reached the level of first-tier suppliers, it is ready to undertake the responsibility of handling iPhone 16 Pro Max orders.
Naturally, it will be well compensated for its efforts, but these changes are said to happen at Foxconn’s expense. Luxshare will reportedly ship between 45-50 million iPhones in 2023, with the figure seeing a massive momentum shift compared to 2022, where Apple’s supplier only shipped around 20 million units. For 2024, the iPhone 16 Pro Max gets a new assembling partner unless Apple says otherwise.
News Source: Ming-Chi Kuo
Source: Wccftech
