The chaos in the world's largest factory for the production of the iPhone in central China's Zhengzhou is increasingly damaging Apple's reputation and causing delivery delays for the Californian manufacturer.

For weeks, pictures of fleeing workers who are afraid of catching a virus in the factory and ending up in quarantine under inhumane conditions have been transmitted online from the location of the Taiwanese supplier Foxconn.

Hundreds of workers have also been involved in street battles with the police since Tuesday after Foxconn apparently failed to pay promised bonuses.

Henrik Ankenbrand

Economic correspondent for China based in Shanghai.

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On Friday, Apple explained for the first time in a statement about the catastrophic conditions in the factory.

A team from the American company was present there.

Working "closely" with Foxconn, the company will investigate the situation and "ensure workers' concerns are addressed."

The Reuters news agency quoted anonymous people familiar with the situation in Zhengzhou on Friday as saying that the protests could not only affect up to 30 percent of November's production, as previously thought, but more.

Production will not return to previous levels by the end of the month.

The timing is extremely unfortunate for Apple, as the outages are likely to delay deliveries of the new iPhone 14, which will be manufactured in Zhengzhou, in the run-up to Christmas.

The factory there is responsible for around 70 percent of the global production of the iPhone.

A technical error?

Foxconn claimed on Thursday that a "technical error" was responsible for the missing bonus payments.

The company has since offered the protesting workers, who were recently hired to fill vacancies for fleeing workers, the sum of 10,000 yuan ($1,500) if they leave the factory premises.

According to Reuters, more than 20,000 workers accepted the offer.

On Friday, a number of videos were shared on Chinese social media of workers walking along expressways with bags and suitcases and queuing in long queues to get on a bus.

The city of Zhengzhou imposed a five-day lockdown on all 6.6 million residents from Thursday.

Entire residential areas are also cordoned off in other cities in China.

On Friday, the authorities reported a new record with 32,695 new cases nationwide.

In a video conference, representatives of the European Chamber of Commerce in China from Beijing, Nanjing, Chengdu, Shenyang and Tianjin gave a bleak outlook for the business and life of foreigners in the country in the coming weeks and months.

VW with fewer cars in China

Volkswagen has announced that due to the lockdowns and shortage of computer chips, it only expects to sell 3.3 million cars in its largest market, China - a good half a million less than the Wolfsburg-based group had set as a target at the beginning of the year.

Overall, according to estimates by the Japanese bank Nomura, areas in China that account for 20 percent of the country's total economic output are currently under lockdown.

According to the report, the proportion will increase to 30 percent in the coming weeks.

As a result, gross domestic product in the fourth quarter will not be 2.8 percent as previously assumed, but 0.4 points less.

Nomura now sees full-year growth down 0.1 points at 2.8 percent.

That would be half the value that the government in Beijing announced as a target in the spring.