By Alan Patterson, EETimes (August 19, 2020)
Taipei – Foxconn, the world’s largest contract manufacturer, says it plans to move more of its production outside China under the impact of the trade war between the world’s two largest economies.
The announcement last week by the company that employs more than a million people in China assembling iPhones for Apple, servers for Dell and electronic games for Nintendo reflects a trend that’s been gaining pace this year.
China’s “days as the world’s factory are done,” Foxconn Chairman Young Liu said at a Taipei event to announce the company’s quarterly results on August 12. “No matter whether it’s India, Southeast Asia or the Americas, there will be a manufacturing ecosystem in each.”
Taiwanese electronics manufacturers such as Foxconn, Quanta and Pegatron are leading a migration of production from China to new factories in Taiwan, Vietnam and India to cut costs and avoid U.S. tariffs while also addressing concerns surrounding security and intellectual property.