China ceases to be Apple’s factory. The company has been taking steps for some time to apply “divide and conquer”, distributing the manufacturing of its products to other territories. Who is currently taking the cake is India, which could receive production of AirPods and Beats headphones.
Expand views to all of East Asia
We’ve touched on India several times this year already: signs point to vendors within its borders taking over manufacturing of some of the iPad and iPhone 12, and now we’re reading per Cult of Mac that AirPods and Beats’ line of headphones could also be made there. Of these, production could start in the first months of 2023.
In parallel we also have an increase in production in the United States itself, even if it is very relative. Yes, the number of US installations has doubled in the last year, but we’re still talking about less than 50 factories. And for now, according to 9to5Mac, they’re focused on testing and prototyping. Nothing massive yet, the only thing that was produced entirely in the country was the Mac Pro and we have yet to find out what will happen with the next generation which already includes Apple Silicon.
Diversification isn’t the only reason Apple wants to spread its suppliers across multiple countries. China’s still very restrictive policies to prevent COVID-19 outbreaks and geopolitical tensions mean that Apple has simply seek to ensure a certain production, in case those tensions escalate to worse levels than we know today. This is not good news for the Chinese government, which will have to work hard to try to keep its suppliers as best it can.
Over time, we will have to move from mentioning China to mentioning Asia as the most global manufacturing area, knowing that Vietnam has also resumed manufacturing of certain products for some time. Logistically it will be more complicatedbut precisely we have a former COO and now CEO like Tim Cook who runs the operation.
