By Sherry Qin


Share of Apple supplier Luxshare rose sharply as the Chinese company swooped in to take a majority slice of a Taiwanese rival's iPhone assembly plant.

The Shenzhen-based company's shares rose as much as 7.2% early Friday before paring gains to 4.2% at CNY34.58 at the midday break.

Taipei-based Pegatron Corp., one of Apple's iPhone assemblers, sold a 62.5% stake in the factory in Kunshan, China, to a Luxshare subsidiary for 2.11 billion yuan ($296.8 million), it said in an exchange filing on Thursday. Pegatron forfeited control of the facility to raise capital to optimize its business, it said.

The acquisition will boost Luxshare's iPhone assembling capacity and paves the way for it to challenge Taiwan's Foxconn Technology Group, Apple's biggest supplier.

Luxshare, previously best known for making Apple's AirPods, now makes a range of products for the U.S. tech giant, including the Apple Watch, iPhone and the upcoming mixed-reality headset set to launch next year. It handled the assembly of the recently released iPhone 15 range, including the top-of-the-line iPhone Pro Max.

In October, Apple CEO Tim Cook praised the assembler's work in a post on social media after a surprise visit to Luxshare's Apple Watch factory near Shanghai.

Shares in Pegatron were last down about 1% in Taipei trade, paring losses after having slid as much as 4.4% earlier.


Write to Sherry Qin at sherry.qin@wsj.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

12-28-23 2352ET