The way I interpret it is: since it's being introduced at the manufacturing plant, those installing the devices have no idea where the finished product will end up. Thus, these are not targetted attacks; they could wind up in the servers of a Fortune 500 company, or just as easily in some hobbyist's home lab. You'd need to compromise a large percentage of the products to increase the chances of landing a juicy target. The scattergun manner is what they're playing up here.