iPad in Brazil
Minister AloÃzio Mercadante said that Apple had planned to begin production of the tablet in late July, but had pushed the start date back to late August or early September, Globo (via Google Translate) reports.
According to the minister, construction glitches and a shortage of skilled labor contributed to the delays. Foxconn, which serves as one of Apple's main manufacturing partners, has hired 175 engineers and sent them to China for training, but more than 200 engineers are needed for the plant.
The project is also dependent upon full legal approval from the city of Jundiaà where the production plant is being built. The city has said it is committed to the project and approval process has been accelerated in order to meet the deadlines.
Mercadante expects a locally produced iPad to be 40 percent cheaper for consumers than the imported version. Brazil has steep import tariffs that can as much as double the cost of consumer electronics.
In April, Mercadante said negotiations were underway with Apple and Foxconn to begin iPad production with a tentative start date of the end of November.
Another Brazilian official has said that the Foxconn unit there will produce as many as six million iPads and generate four to five thousand new jobs by the time it reaches full capacity in three to four years.
Foxconn is also said to be considering a $12 billion investment toward new facilities in the country. According to one report, the company has sent a list of requirements, which includes requests for financial support from the Brazilian National Development Bank and government help in finding investors, to officials as part of the negotiations.
Last month, a Foxconn iPad polishing plant in Chengdu, China experienced an explosion that killed several workers. The planted reopened early this month after an investigation into the incident.
iPad 2 ad
Apple on Friday posted a new ad for the iPad 2 on its website and YouTube channel. Entitled "Now," the ad highlights new opportunities made possible by the touchscreen tablet.
"Now we can watch a newspaper, listen to a magazine, curl up with a movie and see a phone call," the ad states. "Now we can take a classroom everywhere, hold an entire bookstore and touch the stars, because now, there's this."
59 Comments
Keep up the good work with the classy ads!
Of course some will decry the lack of lasers, non sequiturs, and Transformers tie-ins, but I think Apple's quiet style is the best in the business.
So much for free trade.
This would be a good case to study at school, because in theory tariffs don't work because they skew supply and demand, encourage trade wars and reduce home country competitiveness. Here we have tariffs lead a company to become a domestic manufacturer to increase in employment, and an increase in sales (due to reduced price) with no apparent negative affects on the country. Domestic competition is not hurt because there is no competition in tablet space (so no reduction in domestic competitiveness). Demand is not getting any lower and prices on domestic production production are not going up (there are no brazilian tablet makers that I know of).
New plant in Brazil going online will set the path for the into of Ipad 3, but more importantly .....hopefully the quality control and manufacturing process will be better than in China.
Apple needs to crank out iPads like there's no tomorrow. Whatever the global demand is for iPads, Apple absolutely needs to fill that demand so competitor tablets can't possibly get any traction. The greater the iPad availability is, impatient consumers won't need to be looking around for substitute tablets. Fulfilling global demand seems almost impossible for one company considering that Foxconn has said that the iPad is so difficult to make. I sure hope those Brazilian workers are up to the task.
I truly hope that the iPad becomes an education staple for schools around the world. I sure wished technology like that was available when I was going to school some 50 years ago. Being able to pack dozens of eBooks/eTextbooks into a handheld device that size is just amazing. Some say the cost of an iPad is too high, but when it comes to education it surely must be worth the cost.
Some say the cost of an iPad is too high, but when it comes to education it surely must be worth the cost.
Yeah I find anyone with that viewpoint to be insane. $500 for a computer with this much capability, mobility and quality? We've never seen anything this good at this price before. Since when could a person get a $500 mobile PC this good at any point in the past 35 years?
No need to answer that question because it's never happened before.