Apple CEO Tim Cook visits Foxconn in China – Part 1

Apple CEO Tim Cook recently visited the manufacturing site of the company’s biggest vendors, Foxconn in Zhengzhou, China. According to the media, the visit has two strategic sides to it, both or at least one can be true.

The most rumoured telltale is that Cook visited the site to negotiate the manufacturing of the new generation of the iPhone. Foxconn is the biggest vendor in the world; it provides electronic components to the likes of Samsung, Apple, Dell and Hewlett-Packard. However, Apple is their biggest customer.

Cook inspected a newly constructed facility in Zhengzhou, China, that employs 120,000 people, Apple spokesperson Carolyn Wu told the media. Wu declined to discuss what Cook had planned for the remainder his visit or how much longer he was expected to be in the country.

Earlier this week, Apple’s chief executive was spotted in the Joy City Apple Store in Beijing, looking over his company’s products and talking with employees. Cook was mum about the purpose of his visit, but speculation has been rampant that he’s in town to discuss the company’s next-generation iPhone with China Telecom and China Unicom, two of that country’s largest carriers.

Apple told Reuters yesterday that the purpose of the visit was to meet with government officials. “China is very important to us and we look forward to even greater investment and growth there,” the company said in a statement. However, he was also reportedly seen at the Beijing offices of China Mobile–the world’s largest mobile carrier with 650 million customers and considered a key to wider adoption of Apple’s smartphone.

The second major reason why Tim Cook took the initiative of a personal visit to mainland China might be the moral support of the company’s major vendor. Recently, Foxconn has been under tight scrutiny by the likes of Chinese and US governments due to the malpractice of labour laws. However, according to certain reports and news, the company has been abusive of such laws.

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Posted by Usman Khalid on Mar 31 2012. Filed under Sci-Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.