According to foreign media reports, "king of the foundry" Foxconn has invested 40,000 robots in the company's various production processes to accelerate the pace of automated production. In this process of "robot substitution", there are both opportunities brought by the policy, and pressures such as higher labor costs and shrinking profit margins in the mainland. Foxconn is well-known in China as a foundry IPhone. IDC analyst Gao Hongxiang once told the Economic Observer newspaper that about 70 percent of Apple's I Phones were handed over to the Hon Hai Group (Foxconn). In addition, about 65 percent of the iPads were also manufactured by Hon Hai Group. However, as a foundry business, Hon Hai's profit margin is not great. Last year, Hon Hai Group’s financial report showed that Hon Hai’s gross profit margin was approximately 5.8%. This means that Foxconn, which has about 1 million workers in mainland China, must be strictly controlled by its production costs. In recent years, factors such as labor disputes, employee suicides, and rising labor costs in China have also plagued Foxconn. If more robots can be used, a large amount of labor can be released from the production line. Industry observer Liang Zhenpeng told the Economic Observer Online that industrial robots are tireless and have high productivity per unit of time, which can effectively reduce production costs. Last year, with the State Council's release of "Made in China 2025," Foxconn ushered in a policy dividend. Kunshan, Jiangsu Province, is one of the locations of Foxconn factories. It once had a maximum of 110,000 workers. Last year, the Kunshan municipal government promulgated the “Action Plan for Transformation, Upgrading, Innovation and Development for 6 Years†to promote the technological transformation of enterprises and implement “machine substitutionâ€. Kunshan Municipal Party Committee Propaganda Department once stated that at present, Foxconn's factory in Kunshan has been gradually reduced from the previous 110,000 people to 60,000 people. This is due to the reason that robots replace workers, and it is mainly due to the gradual shift of production capacity in Kunshan to the central and western regions in recent years. , orders are reduced. With the gradual slowdown in the growth of the smartphone market, Foxconn is also facing greater pressure. According to IDC data, in the first and second quarter of this year, the global smart phone shipment growth rate was only 0.2% and 0.3%. Hong Kong-listed Fu Chi Kang International, which is owned by Hon Hai, is mainly responsible for Android mobile phone OEM. In the first half of this year, Fu Chi Kang’s revenue was US$2.307 billion, a decrease of 39.8% year-on-year. Liang Zhenpeng said that the use of more robots may be larger at the beginning, but in the long term, it will help companies reduce production costs, but the assembly of mobile phones, computers and other small electronic products, the accuracy of the robot More demanding. Foxconn employees once said that the use of robots in factories is still limited. They can only perform the relatively front-end assembly line operations of simple machines, and the task of assembling screws on the iPhone requires flexibility and precision.
