Did you know: This is the company behind the largest smartphone factory in the world

Phone makers have their factories spread across the globe, although the majority of them are located in Asia. While China used to be the main choice, more and more companies are setting up production facilities in India, Vietnam, Indonesia, and other countries in the region.

So, which company has the largest smartphone factory? Technically, it’s Samsung, but there’s a lot more to the story than meets the eye.

Samsung has the largest smartphone factory in the world, but it’s not based in South Korea or in China. It’s actually located in the city of Noida in India. The production facility was first set up in 1996 for the purpose of building TVs. Samsung pivoted in 2007 when it started making phones in the factory. At that point, it was far from the largest in the world.

The story takes a turn in 2017, when Samsung announced its plans to expand the factory — an investment that set it back around $700 million back then. Just a year later, the expansion was complete, and the Noida factory had become the largest smartphone factory in the world. The expansion doubled the yearly production capacity to approximately 120 million units. In terms of size, the factory measures around 1.4 million square feet (~129,000 square meters) and sits on a lot with an estimated size of 70 acres. For reference, the factory floor size is roughly the same size as 24 American football fields.

It’s worth mentioning that just because the plant can technically produce up to 120 million phones per year, it doesn’t mean it does. The plant produces a lot less per year, as it comes down to the demand for the models the factory makes. And generally, production plants like these rarely run at full capacity at all times. Also, it’s far from the only factory Samsung has set up. The South Korean giant is heavily invested in Vietnam, which is where the majority of its phones are produced across several factories. It also has factories in Brazil, Indonesia, and South Korea.

Now, here’s the kicker: The title of the “world’s biggest factory” was not given by a third party like the well-known Guinness World Records. Samsung decided to give its factory the title itself and is basing it on production capacity (120M units under one roof) alone.

However, it’s important to go into more detail here. Samsung’s Noida factory is a single building, not an industrial city or campus with multiple buildings owned by one company. So, by Samsung’s definition (single integrated unit), the Noida plant really is the biggest smartphone factory in the world. But if we were to change the definition to include “manufacturing campuses,” things take a dramatic turn.

Some of you may have heard of a company called Foxconn. It’s the biggest EMS (Electronics Manufacturing Services) provider in the world, which means its business is to assemble electronics for a long list of big-name clients. The company is mostly known for assembling iPhones and other Apple products, but it also makes Google’s Pixels, gaming consoles like the PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch, and a lot of your other favorite electronics.

Foxconn has a massive campus set in Zhengzhou, China, that consists of dozens of manufacturing facilities. These are on the same lot, owned by Foxconn, but they are technically separate buildings — as opposed to Samsung’s Noida factory, which is a single building.

The campus is known as “iPhone City” and mainly makes iPhones for Apple across its multiple buildings. When it comes to both production capacity and the sheer size of the buildings and the plot, it is far bigger than Samsung’s Noida factory. Its capacity is estimated at around 500,000 iPhones per day, which comes out to a little more than 180 million units per year — 50% more than Samsung’s Noida production capacity.

In terms of sheer size, the total floor space of the buildings is roughly 15 million square feet (10x bigger), sitting on a 1,400-acre lot (20x bigger). So, Foxconn’s production operation is far larger than what Samsung has set up in India. But since Foxconn has multiple buildings on one lot instead of just one, Samsung is technically correct when it talks about having the larger “factory.” Although when you look at the whole story, that accomplishment doesn’t seem as impressive anymore.

So why does Foxconn have a campus with multiple buildings instead of just one massive factory, and which strategy is better? Neither option is inherently better, but there’s logic behind each one. Samsung’s factory only makes Samsung phones, so it makes sense to have all the production lines under one roof.

Foxconn is different since its main business is making products for other brands. Its campus in Zhengzhou mainly makes iPhones, but when they take on other clients, it makes sense to separate the production of different electronics by building. In a lot of cases, a brand like Apple may even demand it, as companies like to keep things private. Just imagine if Pixels and iPhones were made in the same building and a Google engineer came to check out the production and saw the prototypes of the new iPhones, which Apple wants to keep under wraps. Privacy matters.

It’s also possible that some companies, like Apple, help fund the specific equipment needed to make its products. It certainly doesn’t want that equipment used to make any other electronics since it technically belongs to it.

Then there’s risk management Foxconn has to take into account. In case of a disaster like a fire or human error that causes damage to production, the problem can be contained to a single building, while the others continue business as usual.

Demand also comes into play. If Foxconn starts losing clients or sales of popular electronics they assemble drops and they don’t need as much space anymore, they can easily rent out unused buildings to turn a profit. So for Foxconn, the strategy of having multiple buildings on a lot makes sense. For Samsung, it makes a little less.

What do you think? Should the title of the “world’s largest phone factory” still belong to Samsung, or should it be handed to Foxconn since its production capacity is higher, even if it is separated into multiple buildings on the same lot?

Does the definition of a “factory” stop at the door of the building, or does it extend to the fence of the campus? Share your opinion in the comments below.