Coretronic Corp, a Taiwan-based company that manufactures panels for United States tech giant Apple Inc, is halting production at one of its mainland factories due to dwindling iPad sales.
The plant, located in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, has stopped operations and filed applications to liquidate its assets, the National Business Daily said on Tuesday.
The factory produces liquid crystal display backlight modules for iPads. It has more than 1,500 employees, and churned out 1 million units a month at its peak. It was set up in 2005 by Coretronic (Nanjing) Co Ltd.
The National Business Daily said the factory has no orders to process after it manufactured the last batch of products earlier this month. It is expected to complete liquidation by the end of this year, the report said.
A human resources official at the Nanjing plant confirmed to China Daily the factory had gone out of business, but declined to offer more details, like whether its workers will be laid off.
Coretronic was not immediately available for comment. The company is one of the top three panel manufacturers in the world. Specializing in making LCD backlight modules and optical devices, it also runs at least six other production bases in the mainland, including in Shanghai and Guangzhou.
The closure comes amid weakening global demand for iPads. Data from research firm International Data Corporation show that in the second quarter of this year, iPad sales dropped by 17.9 percent to about 10 million units, marking the sixth straight quarterly decline for Apple's tablet business.
Gene Cao, a senior analyst at market research firm Forrester Research Inc, said the poor performance of iPads will continue in the upcoming quarters.
"When Apple released bigger-screen smartphones such as iPhone Plus, it was fully aware of the possible encroachment on iPads," Cao said. "After all, when handsets with large screens are good enough to meet consumer demand for entertainment, why would they need a tablet?"
What further hurts the sales of iPads is that customers rarely renew their tablets. It is normal for users to buy a new smartphone within a year, but they are less willing to change their current iPads for a newer version, experts said.
To breathe new life into its iPad business, Apple launched iPad Pro in September. It is a bigger version of iPad with a 12.9 inch screen. The product, equipped with a smart keyboard and a stylus, is designed to perform like a desktop computer.
"iPad Pro may be a major growth driver for Apple's tablet lineup in the next year, but it is targeting corporate clients, which means the demand will be far smaller than that for iPads, which is positioned as a consumer electronics product," Cao said.
中強光電是台灣一家為美國技巧富翁——蘋果公司臨盆鑲嵌板的企業。克日，因為iPad銷量欠安，致使該公司要地本地一家工場閉門停產。
逐日經濟消息報周二稱，座落在江蘇省南京市的工場如今已停產，正在存檔清理資產。
這家工場在2005年時由中強光有限公司扶植，為iPad臨盆液晶表現器背光模塊。該廠有1500名員工，最高記載每個月可以或許臨盆一百萬個零件。
逐日經濟消息報稱，在這月月初完成臨盆末了一筆定單後，該廠便再沒有了臨盆義務。據猜測，在本年底以前，清理事情便可完成。
南京工場的人力資本部分向中國日報證明工場確切已沒有定單，然則謝絕泄漏更多細節，比方是不是員工將會被開除。
中強光電沒有立刻給出說明。該公司是天下上臨盆鑲嵌板的三巨子之一，其專長範疇是背光模組和光學器件。其在要地本地另有最少六家臨盆基地，包含上海和廣州。
這次工場封閉的直接緣故原由是iPad銷量下滑。國際數據公司的材料表現本年的第二季度，iPad銷量下滑了17.9%，只售出了一萬萬件，標記著蘋果的平板電腦營業持續第六個季度下滑。
曹金妮是市場研討公司—福雷斯特研討公司的資深研討員，她以為，蘋果iPad銷量下滑將會連續到下個季度。
“當蘋果公司宣布如iPhone Plus大屏智妙手機的時刻，就應當熟悉到這會打擊到iPad的銷量”。曹金妮說。“究竟，當手持大屏電子裝備已可以或許知足文娛須要的時刻，誰還會須要平板裝備呢?”
專家以為，已持有平板裝備的花費者遲遲不換新裝備一樣給iPad的銷量帶來打擊。對付用戶來講，一年換一個電話很正常，然則他們很少會每一年換最新版的iPad。
為了給iPad註入活力，蘋果公司在玄月份宣布了iPad Pro。這是比iPad更大的版本，屏幕有12.9英寸。此產物配備智能鍵盤和智能筆，像一台電腦同樣。
曹金妮說：“iPad Pro將會是來歲蘋果公司平板產物線的主力軍，然則它只針對公司客戶，這也就認為著它的需求度比iPad要小的多，定位為電子花費產物。”
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