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[Blablurn]

ZHENGZHOU, China—Farmer Zhang Hailin remembers the day in 2010 when he watched as helicopters flew in over fields of corn and wheat here, hovering in spots to drop balloon-shaped markers.

“Three days later, a hundred bulldozers were here,” Mr. Zhang said.

The iPhone was coming, and it wouldn’t be long before a new industrial town on the edge of Zhengzhou would be known as iPhone City.

A year later, Foxconn’s billionaire chairman Terry Gou said the iPhone factory complex had 100,000 workers. Today, Foxconn says it employs about 250,000, roughly the population of Madison, Wis.

The explosion of higher-tech manufacturing was encouraged by Beijing as leaders sought to move factories up the value chain from making plastic toys and clothes.

Like American company towns a century ago—Pullman, Ill., Hershey, Pa., and Henry Ford’s Detroit—iPhone City revolves mainly around a single product, and it largely depends on that product for its wealth.

Yet unease abounds in Zhengzhou over how long Foxconn—or Apple—will need iPhone City. Sales of the iPhone declined last year for the first time since its debut in 2007. During last year’s production downturn, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang asked Mr. Gou whether iPhone production would rise or fall this year, according to people present at the meeting.

Regardless, Chinese officials see the iPhone factory as a worthwhile investment, said Shi Pu, an economics professor in Henan. “Foxconn has helped train hundreds of thousands of Henan’s people,” he said. “They can use those skills to go on to other jobs.”

Full article here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-iphone-built-a-city-in-china-1499074203

 

[Koppai]

The thing about it is that is not the only product they manufacture, they make all the game consoles, other phones, laptops, etc. as well. I think China will be okay for the forseeable future.

 

[Lil Marco]

Foxconn does way more than just iPhones- they also make most of apple's other hardware, most game consoles, other smartphones, computer parts, etc. Basically any consumer electronic you see for sale at a best buy or amazon has some part in it from Foxconn.

It is true though that the manufacturing scale Apple demands (and buys with their wall of cash) for their flagship product is unparalleled. They are even going as far as to pay LG to not make small OLED panels for anybody else just for this year because of the next iPhone.

 

[GrizzleBoy]

What does it mean that the idea of creating 250k jobs and a new thriving town sounds like a fairy tale to me.