(Asian Tech Press) Luxshare Precision Industry Co., Ltd, a China-based provider of Internet solutions, will OEM the new iPhone for Apple Inc., rivaling its biggest supplier Foxconn Technology Group, according to Taiwan's largest financial newspaper Economic Daily News.
Luxshare will get the first assembly order for the new iPhone this year. And it includes high-end and large-sized models, with a total of 10 million units.
The company's order size will be enlarged year by year and is expected to overtake Taiwanese electronics firm Pegatron Corp. in 2023, becoming the second-largest iPhone assembly hub.
Three Taiwanese companies, including Foxconn, Pegatron, and the original design manufacturer Wistron Corp., are currently carving up the iPhone assembly orders, with Foxconn taking the lion's share.
The China-based tech firm has previously been a member of Apple's supply chain, primarily offering electro-acoustic components, connectors and other components. In 2021, it has leaped to be one of the key players in Apple's supply chain for assembly.
It is worth mentioning that compared to Foxconn, Pegatron and Wistron, Luxshare is an electronics company located in Dongguan city, Guangdong province, mainly focusing on connectors, motors, wireless chargers, FPC, acoustics and electronic modules.
For related rumors, domestic iPhone assembly firms, of course, have always refrained from commenting on the status of their customers' orders.
There is a consensus in the supply chain that Apple will release a new iPhone in mid to late September this year, and possibly name it iPhone 13.
The Taiwanese media mentioned that Luxshare will ship 10 million iPhones this year, 80% to 90% of which will be high-end large-size Pro models.
It is the first time for Luxshare to assemble the high-end models of the new iPhone. Earlier, the high-end ones were always OEMed by Foxconn. In recent years, only part of the orders for high-end models of iPhone 11 were handled by Pegatron.
From supply chain sources, Apple's iPhone series is expected to ship 230 million to 240 million units from 2021 to 2022 respectively, higher than the 195 million units in 2020.
With 10 million units, Luxshare's OEM share accounts for about 4% of the overall iPhone orders in 2021.
At present, Luxshare's iPhone production capacity mainly depends on the Kunshan plant in mainland China, which was bought from Wistron earlier.
According to Economic Daily News, the market originally thought that Luxshare would make up for the orders temporarily vacated by Wistron and produce mainly older models. It was not expected that Apple would be eager to cultivate Luxshare, so it placed orders for new higher-end models to "feed" the Guangdong-based firm.
Rumor has it that, with Apple's deliberate support, the scale of Luxshare's future iPhone OEM orders will grow larger and larger. For example, it is expected that the most conservative order volume will double to 20-25 million units in 2022 compared to this year.
