“China’s campaign to become a global power in advanced manufacturing is playing out at a high-tech factory in the Sichuan province, where engineers are aiming to supply display screens for Apple Inc.’s top-tier iPhones,” Yoko Kubota reports for The Wall Street Journal. “BOE Technology Group Co. plants already make display screens for Apple’s iPads and MacBook computers, and the company is also the world’s top producer of large liquid crystal screens. Now it is seeking to supply Apple with advanced organic light-emitting diode, or OLED, smartphone screens, according to people familiar with the plans.”
“BOE, hardly a household name in the U.S., has advanced quickly in the display industry. It became the No. 1 supplier of large LCD screens last year, up from No. 5 in 2014, according to IHS Markit,” Kubota reports. “It is the only Chinese display company that supplies Apple, which is notoriously finicky in its demands for top-quality components.”
“Buying display screens from BOE, which is controlled by the Beijing city government and whose biggest shareholders are state-linked companies, could help Apple stay in China’s good graces—as long as BOE can meet Apple’s high bar for quality,” Kubota reports. “‘It would be seen favorably by Chinese policymakers if Apple puts a stamp of good quality for China’s own technology of suppliers,’ said Dan Wang, a technology analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Anything that diversifies suppliers helping keep component prices down and innovation up along with making Apple even more valuable to China is obviously a smart tack to take.
At least China is doing the right thing and they did a great job of assembling Apple gear for a long time now. This is something India cannot do but feels compelled to charge extra tax on Apple for importing components that India cannot produce internally
Today’s tally: Stupid Dogg 1 out of 4 race to the top. You remind me of brainless @breeze with nothing but cliches, opinion and blind cheerleading. Incapable of an insightful original thought. Come back for more Tuesday morning..
Your comment seems incoherent and has little to do with Snoop Dogg. You accuse Snoop of speaking only cliche, but he is not doing so. Sounds like you are mad about something. Maybe you can get over that and add some insightful comments.
obviously you are clueless need to keep up
Chinese companies steal IPs as much as S. Korean companies. In the US, it’s Google. So where can Apple go to avoid eventual theft of its IPs? Nowhere is foolproof. All it can do is reduce the outflow by discouraging it. One of the ways is to battle them in court where it gets good publicity for being an attack dog to regain its IPs and serves a warning.
Apple second prong is to resort to out-develop its rivals and corner the component market which also serve as discouragements.
One more Chinese company, one more Chinese foray into technical achievement using US market strength, technical know-how, for their own advancement.
True, this would be true for any company, but the Chinese “mission” isn’t just to be a supplier in this case, nor in any other. I believe their “assistance” serves to ultimately bring them to dominance at the expense of the “mentor.’
This type of story is happening more and more and will be so into the future and it causes me concern. Call me irrational.
I read that China demands that foreign companies share certain key technical info with it in return for entry into the Chinese marketplace. For foreign companies, this means to me a quick win but a likely long term loss.