Apple MacBook 2018: Foxconn Building More Units This Year

It appears Apple will be increasing its MacBook supply from Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) this year. A new report is saying that instead of ordering a huge portion of its supply from Quanta Computer, the tech giant has shifted a major portion of its orders to Foxconn.

On Monday, industry sources told DigiTimes that Apple won’t be following its tradition of giving most of its MacBook orders to computer manufacturing company Quanta Computer. The company has reportedly decided to order more units to Foxconn this time around.

The sources also indicated that Foxconn is already expected to commence mass shipments to fulfil Apple’s orders in the second quarter. The sources even went as far as claiming that Foxconn’s plants in Shenzhen, China already started assembly work for some of MacBook components back in the second half of 2017.

Interestingly, Apple’s move still wouldn’t make Foxconn its major supplier of MacBooks. Quanta will remain to be the largest supplier of Apple, which is not surprising knowing that Quanta has always been the major manufacturer of Apple’s MacBooks. In fact, the ratio for Quanta and Foxconn was at 8:2 for the past five years. Last year, Quanta had 79.5 percent share, while Foxconn only got 20.5 percent.

Both Foxconn and Quanta did not comment on the report. However, it should be noted that Foxconn has been working so hard to land more MacBook orders from Apple in the recent years. This 2018, Foxconn’s efforts may seem to have finally paid off. Since Apple is not doing a major revamp to its MacBook line, it has decided to order more to Foxconn to save costs.

The news comes days after Bloomberg published a report about Apple meeting with suppliers of nuts and bolts for its upcoming AR glasses at last week’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2018. It can be noted that the publication was also the one who divulged last November that the Cupertino giant could release its AR glasses in the market as early as 2020.

Apple seems to be focused on introducing a new AR experience to consumers. Late last year, Tim Cook teased that “AR is going to change the way we use technology forever.” He also said at the time, “I view AR as profound. Not today, not the app you’ll see on the App Store today, but what it will be, what it can be, I think it’s profound, and I think Apple is in a really unique position to lead in this area.”