In recent weeks, Apple has accelerated plans to shift some of its production outside China, long the dominant country in the company’s supply chain, The Wall Street Journal reports citing “people involved in the discussions.”
Yang Jie and Aaron Tilley for The Wall Street Journal:
[Apple] is telling suppliers to plan more actively for assembling Apple products elsewhere in Asia, particularly India and Vietnam, they say, and looking to reduce dependence on Taiwanese assemblers led by Foxconn Technology Group.
Turmoil at a place called iPhone City helped propel Apple’s shift. At the giant city-within-a-city in Zhengzhou, China, as many as 300,000 workers work at a factory run by Foxconn to make iPhones and other Apple products.
The Zhengzhou factory was convulsed in late November by violent protests. In videos posted online, workers upset about wages and Covid-19 restrictions could be seen throwing items and shouting “Stand up for your rights!” Riot police were present, the videos show.
Coming after a year of events that weakened China’s status as a stable manufacturing center, the upheaval means Apple no longer feels comfortable having so much of its business tied up in one place, according to analysts and people in the Apple supply chain.
“In the past, people didn’t pay attention to concentration risks,” said Alan Yeung, a former U.S. executive for Foxconn…
Some Chinese youth are no longer eager to work for modest wages assembling electronics for the affluent. They are seething in part because of Beijing’s heavy-handed Covid-19 approach, itself a concern for Apple and many other Western companies. Three years after Covid-19 started circulating, China is still trying to crush outbreaks with measures such as quarantines, as many other countries have returned to prepandemic norms.
Protests in Chinese cities over the past week, during which some demonstrators called for the ouster of President Xi Jinping, suggested criticism over Covid-19 restrictions could build into a larger movement against the government.
All this comes on top of more than five years of heightened U.S.-China military and economic tensions…
MacDailyNews Take: The time to accelerate plans to move production out of China was November 9th 2016, but, hey, six years late is better than never!
It’s smart for both Apple and Foxconn to diversify assembly outside of China. There’s no sense having all of your eggs in one basket. — MacDailyNews, April 2, 2019
India will help power Apple’s growth for many years. – MacDailyNews, January 4, 2017
See also: Tim Cook firmly latched Apple onto China’s CCP teat. What’s his plan for weaning it off? – November 2, 2022
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strangely stupid of Tim Cook – hailed as bringing AAPL to the stratosphere from near bankruptcy 1998, even to world’s richest firm in history, whether at first world record for $1T, $2T, $3T, and for luxury products/gadgets, not necessary oil or other services humans must use daily!, but then the same Mr Cook cooked his own demise and might destroy the Appleberg he built!?!? Makes no sense how Tim’s wisdom is so shortsighted to put all eggs in same basket.
is it still in time to save Apple, whether before or after Tim Cook’s retirement?!
Cook fell in love with the ease and cheapness of exploiting the Chinese communist worker. He didn’t want it to end. So, he’s way late. It was obvious from the election of Trump that China dependence was a huge risk. Cook didn’t want to give it up, to the detriment of Apple.
President Xi sure is an ugly fsck
The red cable shouldn’t be around Cook’s neck, but it should go through an analring.
The ever-compliant Chinese are still wearing masks! LOL!
Only leftist scum-phuklets downvoted tbe above. You know who you are, pure sexiest leftist EVIL. You should be ashamed. Scum-Phuklets!
Ive been super critical of Apple in recent years over their partnership and double standard they have for the CCP. But we should celebrate this decision to lessen dependence on mainland China. Its right to be critical of Apple but we should also allow a path for repentance and correction. To be fair to Tim, Many in the world had hoped that by building up China’s economy that their government would follow. And for awhile it seemed that there was progress. But for the last 10 years the CCP under Xi has become progressively brutal against their own people and down right genocidal to non Han Chinese ethic minorities. Now the democratic free would must shun the CCP on all levels. Maybe one day soon the Chinese people will be free. Defend Taiwan !!!
Been obvious by the early years of this century that that wasn’t going to happen, anyone who didn’t heed the warnings and signals by 2010 really did have their heads up their asses. Cook like so many of his ilk in one eyed capitalist entities just think short sightedly, shutting out of their minds or simply hoping the inevitable long term picture doesn’t somehow happen at all or if it does not on their watch. Totally stupid and politicians wanting good short term economic figures and trends only encourage it. It could take a decade or more to repair the damage and that’s only from imminent disaster levels for the West not longer term dependence.
I disagree with the MDN take. Do NOTlaud this. They learned NOTHING from china. So they are moving production from one hellscape communist s-hole to another, Vietnam. India is so corrupt and often will nationalize companies on a whim, demanding they be a “partner” in the business.
They are bringing no assembly back the the US. Apple can absolutely automate assembly in the US like fox con has in china. At least bring 5%, SOMETHING, back to the US. STOP enriching all these hellscape regimes.
Communist fscks must DIE. They are a CANCER on civilisation. Like Bidementia (and his many a$$lickers on this site) they are SICK in the head. Slimes one and all
Many people surmised that with the advent of M1 and the end of the Intel tax, Mac prices might go down. They did not; in fact in some cased the increased. I have no doubt leaving China will be another excuse to increase prices. Not that I want support a half assed communist dictatorship, but it seems as though Apple will take every opportunity to raise prices and their stock price/market valuation. They make “luxury” products that don’t feel quite as luxurious as they once did. Hardware has issues that do not get addressed for years (butterfly keyboard, 2013 Mac Pro) and the software comes incomplete every year. It is getting hard to remember the last time Apple shipped an OS that launched with all the features that were announced. I’d rather have great OS in 18 or 24 month increments, that was complete, than a new OS every year that was buggy and incomplete. But as long as the cash rolls in, I guess quality doesn’t matter as much.
Geez I have been reading this BS for over 20 years, indeed right back through the 90s. Must be a Steve Ballmer bot that never got turned off.
For those who think it’ll be easy for Apple to move production to the U.S. — or anywhere else for that matter — consider the numbers. The primary Foxconn factory in China (that produces 85% of iPhones) employs 300,000 workers. That’s half the population of the state of Wyoming. Ford’s legendary River Rouge complex in Michigan only employed 100,000 workers at its peak.
China’s enormous population, and its willingness to devote the output of entire regions to support massive supply chains, will be hard to duplicate anywhere else in the world. And Apple isn’t the only company that created a monster they now have to deal with. The entire American economy — from Apple to Walmart to your local 99 Cent Store — is now 100% dependent on manufacturing in China.
Even is Apple spent the $10 billion to $20 billion dollars to build a massive factory complex in the US (about the cost of two of Tesla’s “gigafactories,” where are you going to find the hundreds of thousands of workers needed to assemble iPhones and all the necessary components?
Cook has quite the pipeline, he’ll just pull those employees-to-be right out of his … ah… pipeline.
There will be plenty of them in 20 years as soon as we fix the education system. 🙂
I agree though India offers some growing answer to that question but yes certainly not Western Countries.
I found your potential American workers…
…but your open borders policy that allows a flood of fentanyl and other deadly drugs killed them before they could get to work.
CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics: There were 107,622 drug overdose deaths in the United States during 2021, an increase of nearly 15% from the 93,655 deaths estimated in 2020.
“Even is Apple spent the $10 billion to $20 billion dollars to build a massive factory complex in the US (about the cost of two of Tesla’s “gigafactories,” where are you going to find the hundreds of thousands of workers”
More people than needed walked across the Southern Border since Biden took office. Put them on a work search program, or lose government benefits. Que the braindead snowflakes…