Samsung abandons plan to shift premium phone production to Vietnam

Early March, the tech giant had planned to move some smartphone production to Vietnam when its staffers tested positive for the coronavirus, forcing it to close a factory.

When the pandemic first began, South Korea was the country hit the hardest after China. The virus has since caused havoc across the globe while strict measures taken by the South Korean government have enabled the company to put a lid on the situation.

The company was planning to shift premium phone production to Vietnam to offset delays at its Gumi plant in South Korea. However, it appears to have given up on that idea as South Korea is now one of the few countries where the COVID19 situation is under control, said Sammobile.

The Gumi plant in South Korea is where Samsung’s premium smartphones like the Galaxy Fold and Galaxy Z Flip are manufactured. This plant had to be shut down for a couple of days due to confirmed COVID19 cases.

Since late February, several workers tested positive at the factory complex in Gumi, close to the city of Daegu, the epicenter of South Korea’s virus outbreak, leading to previous temporary closures at the plant.

The situation in South Korea was much worse at that time so it would have made sense for the company to do that in order to ensure that it could continue to put these phones on the market.

Reports out of South Korea suggest that Samsung has withdrawn this plan because the situation is now under control in its home country even as the virus causes disruption across the globe.

Apple eyes Vietnam business

While Samsung scrapped its plant to move premium phone production to Vietnam, the US-based iPhone maker has listed several jobs in Vietnam’s Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, including an operations manager.

The job description says Apple is looking for an operations manager to "help the company foster growth in this market, leading "a team of engineers in support of new product development as well as sustaining operations in ensuring the contract manufacturer readiness for very high volume production."

The multinational company has been posting many job openings over the past few months, from a senior role like regional operations and new product manager in Hanoi to camera ops test engineering in Saigon.

The recruitment move adds credence to reports that Apple could increase outsourcing manufacturing to Vietnam, VnExpress says.

The Nikkei Asian Review in mid-June last year reported that the U.S.-based multinational company asked its suppliers looked for ways to shift "15 percent to 30 percent of production from China to other parts of Southeast Asia" amid the trade war between two of the world's largest economies.

► Vietnam quarantines 751 Samsung workers after a coronavirus case confirmed

Source: Sammobile