Henan province could be the production site of iPhone 7 sapphire screen displays, according to China Economic Weekly.
An unnamed official with the government of Henan’s capital Zhengzhou city said they had reached an agreement with Foxconn to build a 2,000-mu factory in the city to produce the displays.
The investment amount will depend on customer demand, said a director at Foxconn’s Henan branch, adding that the project plan was still in an early stage.
Analyst said that if the assembler can produce displays for iPhones, it would earn 45 to 52.5 dollars from each device, and even more from the upcoming iPhone 7.
Foxconn has been a longtime manufacturer of Apple products, mainly handling final assembly of the devices, but its goals go beyond that.
The Henan branch director said that Foxconn is becoming an innovation-oriented company.
Cheng Peng, CEO of a Beijing-based investment company, said the company would establish an industry chain in Zhengzhou to produce smart terminals.
Foxconn established factories in Henan province earlier in 2011 to conduct assembly of iPhones. The factory produced 96.45 million mobile phones in 2013, and exported 84.46 million.