Samsung has officially pulled the plug for its mobile phone production in China. The closing down of its factory, which began when the Korean electronics giant began phasing out productions early last year, comes as the company struggles to maintain its status as one of the world’s most popular Android smartphone.
One reason Samsung attributes the factory shutdown to was due to rising labour costs and the economic slowdown. In total, its factory in Huizhou housed as many as 6,000 employees and produced up to 63 million units of smartphones when it was still in operation.
Within China itself, Samsung’s smartphone sales are threatened by several homegrown brands, including Vivo, OPPO, Xiaomi, and of course, Huawei. In the case of the latter, the brand’s smartphones experienced a surge in sales, despite the ongoing trade war between its country and the US.
Samsung isn’t the only smartphone brand struggling in this market. Amidst the US trade ban on China, Apple, too, is already planning on moving a significant portion of its iPhone production outside of China. On that note, Malaysia was reportedly on the company’s list as a possible new home for a production facility.
Google, unsurprisingly, is another brand making a similar move with its Pixel production. The only difference is that, unlike Samsung or Apple, the search engine already has its heart set on opening up a new production facility somewhere within Vietnam.
(Source: Reuters via TechCrunch // Image: Samsung)
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