Pegatron goes on a hiring spree ahead of next-generation iPhone production

iPhone 6 front camera

With a little more than two months before its assumed September release, contract manufacturer Pegatron is reportedly in the process of hiring as many as 40,000 workers as it makes preparations to kick off assembly work on Apple’s iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s refresh, according to a DigiTimes report this weekend.

Protek, a Pegatron subsidiary in eastern China, reportedly began recruiting workers at the end of June and will continue to do so until October, one month after the expected launch of the new iPhones.

Protek is planning to hire 40,000 workers in total, said the Taiwanese trade publication.

If history is anything to go by, the new handsets should launch in September.

Shipments are estimated to reach 25 million units in the third quarter of this year before hitting 50 million units in the Christmas quarter.

Framed as the biggest incremental release in the iPhone’s history, the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus are said to offer ”the biggest camera jump ever,” as per Daring Fireball’s John Gruber, supply chain chatter and analysts.

Other rumored features include an updated Qualcomm baseband modem for up to twice as fast 4G LTE networking at 300Mbps, improved NFC, faster and more reliable Touch ID, a force-sensing screen possibly offering more pixels than the present-generation models, an Apple-designed “A9” processor with 2GB of RAM, and more.

Last week, Bloomberg cited sources familiar with the matter as saying that Apple had recently begun early production of the forthcoming iPhone models, with volume manufacturing expected to ramp up this month.

In addition to Pegatron, the new iPhones should also be assembled by Foxconn, a longtime manufacturing partner of Apple’s. Apple suppliers including Largan, Flexion and Zhen Ding have already expanded their production facilities to cope with an influx of orders for the next-generation iPhone.

Source: DigiTimes