Apple is hitting stumbling blocks in its effort to increase production in India, as the company faces pressure to cut its potentially crippling over reliance on China.
Patrick McGee and John Reed for Financial Times:
[Apple] has been sending product designers and engineers from California and China to factories in southern India, to train locals and help establish production, according to four people familiar with the operations.
It comes as Apple attempts to unwind its dependence on a China-centred supply chain strategy, following months of Covid-19 disruption that led to it reporting its first decline in quarterly revenues in three and a half years earlier this month.
Apple is building up nascent operations in India in an overdue diversification strategy…
At a casings factory in Hosur run by Indian conglomerate Tata, one of Apple’s suppliers, just about one out of every two components coming off the production line is in good enough shape to eventually be sent to Foxconn, Apple’s assembly partner for building iPhones, according to a person familiar with the matter.
This 50 per cent “yield” fares badly compared with Apple’s goal for zero defects. Two people that have worked in Apple’s offshore operations said the factory is on a plan towards improving proficiency but the road ahead is long.
MacDailyNews Take: 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
Apple cannot divest their dependence on China quickly enough (because they started years too late). – MacDailyNews. August 17, 2022
Diversify, diversify, diversify – especially away from CCP-controlled China. – MacDailyNews, October 19, 2022
Former U.S. President Richard Nixon, who opened relations with China in the early 1970’s, just before his death in 1994 remarked on China: We may have created a Frankenstein.
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