Foxconn now hiring again for iPhone 6

Foxconn Technology Group, the world's largest contract manufacturer of electronics by revenue, has restarted hiring assembly line workers in the Chinese mainland to produce Apple's next-generation gadget iPhone 6, the China Business News (CBN) reported Tuesday, citing company insiders.

The report said Foxconn has started producing the ­iPhone 6 and is greatly in need of ­assembly line workers.

Foxconn has been a major producer of iPhone and iPad, but it recently lost some Apple orders to its Taiwan peer Pegatron Corp, which media reports said was due to quality problems in iPhone 5 handsets Foxconn produced for Apple.

The CBN said Foxconn's current workforce is nearly one-third smaller than in 2012, a result of the lost Apple contracts.

Pegatron Corp, on the other hand, will increase workers by 30 to 40 percent in the second half of this year, the report said. Currently it has around 100,000 workers in its Chinese mainland factories.

In the first five months, Foxconn's branch in Zhengzhou, Central China's Henan Province produced 32.16 million cell phones, up 46.7 percent year-on-year.

Hon Hai, the flagship firm of Foxconn, earned more than $100 billion in revenue last year, with Apple estimated to account for up to 60 percent, Reuters reported last month.

Hon Hai has been making efforts to reduce its reliance on Apple. The Reuters report said that the company plans to focus more on developing new technologies, intellectual property rights and e-commerce.

The CBN report said that Foxconn is in talks with mainland Internet firm Xiaomi Technology to produce Xiaomi tablets.

Foxconn currently has around 1.2 million workers in the Chinese mainland.