Apple supplier Pegatron is set to raise staffing levels by a colossal 40 per cent in the second half of the year, with the new workers rumoured to be assembling Cupertino’s much-hyped budget iPhone.
While Pegatron itself refused to confirm that the extra workforce would be beavering away on Apple’s latest iPhone, sources have told Reuters that the device is already in the works.
The news agency reports that some Japanese suppliers have already started on early production.
Mass production is scheduled to begin in June, with the device now expected to make an official appearance in the autumn, in line with Tim Cook’s promise of ‘exciting products this fall’.
Pegatron’s hiring drive comes just a month after rival Apple supply-chain mainstay Foxconn added 10,000 new employees to its production lines.
That suggests that Apple is going all out to get every supplier it can working at full capacity on a budget iPhone.
The handset is expected to rock a cheap plastic shell, with talk of a larger screen to compete with the likes of Samsung’s Galaxy range and HTC’s forthcoming M4.
Whether it can capture the lucrative Chinese and Indian markets, however, remains to be seen.
