Apple opens extensive research lab in Shenzhen, China; expected to employ over 1,000 people
Apple has established a new applied research laboratory in Shenzhen, China, reflecting its commitment to the world’s largest smartphone market amid growing competition from domestic players like Huawei Technologies.
The facility began operations on Thursday at the Shenzhen Park in Hetao, a collaboration zone established by the Chinese government to strengthen tech partnerships between Shenzhen and Hong Kong. This move underscores Apple’s strategic focus on the Chinese market.
Iris Deng for South China Morning Post:
Apple announced in March its plans to build a new Shenzhen lab, which the company said would boost its testing and research capabilities for its major products, including the iPhone, iPad and Vision Pro mixed-reality headset, and also serve to strengthen the firm’s collaboration with local suppliers.
The facility, spanning 20,000 square metres (215,000 square feet) in the initial phase, will become Apple’s research and development hub in the Greater Bay Area – an economic and business centre comprising Hong Kong, Macau and nine cities in Guangdong province.
It will eventually employ over 1,000 domestic and international talents, and become the company’s “most extensive” lab outside the United States, according to the report…
The company said in March that it has set up research centres in Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou and Shenzhen. The size of its research and development team in China has doubled in the past five years, it added.
Apple faces growing rivalry in the Chinese smartphone market, where Shenzhen-based Huawei has seen a revival of its handset business.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple are masters at couching bribery as “investment,” especially in China. (see: Apple invests $1 billion in Chinese ride-hailing service Didi Chuxing – May 12, 2016)
As Chinese businessman Wang Shi said so concisely:
It’s easy not to bribe. But it’s not so easy to keep a business running at the same time.
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