Apple (News - Alert) announced on December 16th that it will be opening sales for iPhones in 21 more countries, including Brazil. With this announcement, demand for the iPhone will surely grow and guess who the pressure is on? Chinese manufacturer Foxconn decided to. This is going to make Foxconn the largest manufacturer of smartphones in the planet. The Zhengzhou facility is responsible for producing Apple's iPhones.

China Daily says that Foxconn will increase its factory's size by twice as much as it was before. The facility sits in the Henan province in China, and the project will cost a tad above $1 billion. Although expensive, the project is not without its merits. Foxconn will have 95 production lines, giving it the possibility to earn $20 billion in sales in 2012.

Foxconn's Zhengzhou facility has 130,000 of the company’s employees, all of which take part in the production of 200,000 iPhones every day. The company is also the largest manufacturer of electronics on the planet, with over one million jobs depending on everyone's demands for high-tech electronics. Almost every one of those employees lives in China. Foxconn participates in the production of electronics for companies like HP, Microsoft (News - Alert), Sony, Nintendo and Dell. Apple hasn't seen a bright and sunny market share in all departments, though. Its iPhone's market share dropped sharply in continental Europe. It seems, though, that Apple is holding its own in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom.

This drop in market share has its roots in consumer demand, as consumers prefer to buy cheaper smartphones due to the economic crisis. Still, some may have reconsidered buying an iPhone (News - Alert) 4S to wait for the iPhone 5, rumored to have a larger screen and several other improvements that the iPhone 4S didn't top off.