Cutting Reliance on China, Apple To Move 25% iPhone Production To India By 2025 - JPM (techcrunch.com) 57
Apple began assembling some of its devices in India and Vietnam a few years ago, slowly cutting its reliance on China. The Cupertino-giant is now gearing up to make the two nations key global manufacturing hubs, according to analysts at JP Morgan. From a report: In a report they sent to clients Wednesday, JP Morgan analysts said Apple will move 5% of global iPhone 14 production to India by late 2022, and expand its manufacturing capacity in the country to produce 25% of all iPhones by 2025. Vietnam, on the other hand, will contribute 20% of all iPad and Apple Watch productions, 5% of MacBook and 65% of AirPods by 2025, the report said, which was reviewed by TechCrunch. India has attracted investments from Foxconn and Wistron in recent years by offering lucrative subsidies as New Delhi moves to make the country a manufacturing hub. The presence of the foreign production giants, coupled with "ample labor resources and competitive labor costs," make India a desirable location, the analysts said.
Genius (Score:1)
Well that's genius. Having trouble with the communists? Why not try your luck with the developing fascist-religious regime next door.
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Several people on
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No but Modi, Trump's Indian lookalike, not only is in India, he remains the supreme leader.
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They just need it for a few years until it can be made in fully robotic lights-out factory located in multiple countries.
Re:Genius (Score:4, Interesting)
If they did assembly of some units IN the US, I'd happily pay a bit extra for those!!!
Kinda like getting a US Stratocaster vs a MX Stratocaster....
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At least India isn't shutting down it's entire country indefinitely in a futile attempt at Zero Covid.
I for one look forward to my iPhone 5i (Score:3)
Heck, if works for India, it works for me!
Why not Philippines? (Score:2)
I am surprised that they don't move some of the manufacturing to the Philippines?
Lower costs, most people speak English, and is a democracy. Its about 1800 nautical miles closer to Los Angeles than India.
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Supply chain.
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Because, like China, India is ok with what is essentially slave labor?
It's an Apple thing. They have an addiction to slave labor.
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And the Philippines is such a more enlightened place? I strongly doubt that.
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And the Philippines is such a more enlightened place? I strongly doubt that.
It's a former colony of the US, like a super-sized version of Puerto Rico, two of its spoils IIRC in its war against the collapsing Spanish empire. So in theory the people there should speak more understandable English than in India (former part of the British empire). FWIW FB is also pretty big there.
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Do you have any specifics about the Philippines? India still practices "honor killings" and village women throwing themselves (or being thrown) on their husband's funeral pyres, has an ongoing warm civil war between Hindi and Muslim populations, a warm war with China and another with Pakistan. What horrible equivalent things are going on in Philippines?
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Have you been asleep for the lat few years? The previous president Duterte won on a "tough on crime" platform that meant turning the police into death squads who summarily executed suspected drug dealers. The current president is Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. His father is famous for imposing martial law, suspending democracy, and having his his political opponent Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr assassinated. They have issues with extreme poverty, sex trafficking, gun crime, corruption, and even Muslim sepa
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the GDP/capita is lower in India compared to the Philippines. Remember they are looking for cheap labor.
And India has plenty of poor people, over a billion of it.
India is also a democracy (just like the Philippines, which means people can vote (unlike China), but not much more).
They couldn't care less about the language used by factory cheap labors, as long as the boss speaks English (which will be the case in India anyways, even more than in China).
Given that the USA is not the only market, geographic loca
Nice to see... (Score:2)
Nice to see at least some US companies moving away from 100% manufacturing dependence on a country that has active territorial claims against multiple US allies in the region and with a military that is growing to a place where they might be able to go after them soon. I wish more companies acted to lessen our country's dependence on China.
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When it does come here it will be fully automated robotic manufacturing. Which is a good thing btw, just make sure it is reflected in a tax that can fund workfare or UBI.
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My apathy has grown to a place where I don't care what busy bodies tell me about my grammar.
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It's not some high-minded ethical move, nor is it even future-proofing against supply chain interruptions. They are doing it for the same reason Xiaomi, Oppo, and Foxconn have already moved facilities there, the Indian government is giving them huge incentives to do so.
Lets Bring This Production... (Score:2)
... to the United States by killing the business-strangling income taxes by passing the FairTax, a luxury tax on new goods for sale at retail (not wholesale) and services. It results in a tax-free manufacturing environment that would case the world's manufacturers to injure themselves in the stampede to build manufacturing in the world's newest, bestest tax shelter, the US of A.
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Not sure why we would want to attract manufacturing to the US when we're having a labor shortage in the middle of what is likely a recession. We already don't have enough workers at that level of employment.
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Except that hasn't been the problem. Apple did move some production to the US with the Mac Pro. They literally couldn't get supplies to continue production. The supply chain simply doesn't exist in the US, regardless of [reasonable] cost.
One measly screw.
And Apple surely should have been able to put some on a plane from China while they contracted with someone in North America to manufacture them domestically. Afterall, sales of Mac Pros are vanishingly-small compared with even iMacs or MacBook Pros.
I always thought that the "unobtainable screw" was an overblown story about a rather commonplace, easily fixable Logistics screwup; the kinds that happen all over manufacturing, worldwide, every single day.
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Unemployment in the US is currently extremely low, even if you look at U-6 (which includes people who barely want to work). How are you going to find workers to assemble iPhones? Assembling iPhones doesn't pay very much.
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We have to get over this idea that we're going to be able to get help while still paying everyone in peanuts. Slap a $45 / hr pay rate on it and watch them come out of the woodwork. You wouldn't be hiring all that many people in the USA, since they'd mostly be just tending rows and rows of machines that were doing the actual assembly. None of this cheap-out, "Oh, that job ain't worth a good pay rate" bleet, 'cuz it is if you can't get people to do it at a lower rate. And the American worker, with 10
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We have to get over this idea that we're going to be able to get help while still paying everyone in peanuts. Slap a $45 / hr pay rate on it and watch them come out of the woodwork. You wouldn't be hiring all that many people in the USA, since they'd mostly be just tending rows and rows of machines that were doing the actual assembly. None of this cheap-out, "Oh, that job ain't worth a good pay rate" bleet, 'cuz it is if you can't get people to do it at a lower rate. And the American worker, with 1000's of assembly machines at his aid, will outperform the 1000's of hand assemblers in China or anywhere else, paid at $2 - $3 / hr without machines to aid them. And the machines will work all 3 shifts and not get tired, or demand a salary beyond their initial cost plus maintenance.
There's actually a surprising amount of hand-work in the final stages of assembly, testing and packaging of almost every product.
Robots are great at applying solder paste and stuffing components on PC boards, forming/milling aluminum into chassis-pieces, and moving subassemblies around. But it is still human dexterity that wins the day when it comes to final assembly, cable/flex-strip routing, connector-plugging, placing assemblies so that slots and cutouts line up, laptop lids are aligned, etc, et CETERA.
I
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Oh, and we also have to cut out this "woke" shit of giving advancement to this person because she's a woman or that guy 'cuz he's a black or someone else 'cuz they're gay. The person doing the best work needs to get the advancement without regard to what group they may belong,
LOL! (Score:2)
FairTax was a single rate tax proposal in 2005, 2008 and 2009 in the United States that includes complete dismantling of the Internal Revenue Service.
LOL! No seriously, LOL!
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Its basically a luxury tax that doesn't have a thing to do with taxing income, so no IRS necessary. As a luxury tax, it is a consumption tax that can't hurt the poor, because they don't buy those. The founding fathers set us up to run on consumption taxes, and we screwed up in 1913 and instituted this kleptocracy of than income tax, and all the strife that went with it. It greatly harms our industries, compeititvity in the world, etc. With no income taxes, manufacturing would be profitabel in the US
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Many of founding fathers owned slaves and none of them wanted women to vote. They weren't gods so stop behaving like they are infallible. Your ideas of extreme simplicity absolutely scream that your naivete exceeds your knowledge. Seriously, look at any other government on the planet and tell me which one uses this super simple plan.
You are enamored by your own political reflection without giving it serious consideration and it's pathetic.
Re: LOL! (Score:2)
Some of the founders, even some who owned slaves, didn't like slavery and would like to have abolished it. They knew it was wrong, but wanted to do commercial agriculture which required slaves to do profitably. Do you know that polluting the air with suto exhaust is wrong? Do you do it anyway? Why? Because you don't have a viable alternative in 2022. Slavery was just the way things were back then. Franklin was even president of the Pennsylvania Abolitionist society.
As for the Fairtax, I didn't engine
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Do you know that polluting the air with auto exhaust is wrong?
Yes.
Do you do it anyway?
No, I bought an EV years ago.
Why? Because you don't have a viable alternative in 2022.
No, it's because people are stupid and selfish. People are still buying brand new ICE cars, even ones that cost more than the most expensive EV. The problem is selfish people like you.
It was researched and found to be able to provide as much revenue as the income taxes and do it much more simply and equitably.
And this is where you are wrong. It's not equitable at all because it costs $X/yr just to stay alive which is the same for everyone from a income stream of $Y/yr which is variable. What the so-called "FairTax" does is put the greatest burden on the poorest people by ensuring $X/yr is a MUCH
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Wrong.
The poor don't pay $0.01 of FairTax. The FairTax is a luxury tax. Under the FairTax, the government sends you enough money for your living situation - single, married, married with X dependents - to pay the FairTax on everything you buy up to the poverty level for that living situation. Effectively, the poor don't use any of their own money to pay the FairTax on the new items for sale at retail. The catch is that the poor don't buy everything they buy in new condition at retail. They buy lot
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Personal services such as health care, legal services, financial services, and auto repairs would be subject to the FairTax, as would renting apartments and other real property.[5] Food, clothing, prescription drugs, and medical services would be taxed.
That's regressive as hell. Shelter, health care, and food ARE NOT A LUXURY.
As for EV's, I desperately want one, but it has to be able to do what my current car does.
Exactly, you will not make the slightest sacrifice or modification to your life because you are selfish. Just accept that it is who you are.
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"Personal services such as health care, legal services, financial services, and auto repairs would be subject to the FairTax, as would renting apartments and other real property.[5] Food, clothing, prescription drugs, and medical services would be taxed.
That's regressive as hell. Shelter, health care, and food ARE NOT A LUXURY."
Does it bother you that currently, 15,3% of a poor person's wages go to Washington DC via the payroll tax? The "Employer's Share" of the payroll tax is a myth, since the employer s
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And again, the poor person is ALREADY buying shelter, healthcare, and food with his below-poverty income and so the FairTax does not tax it due to the "prebate" that pays each person enough to pay the FairTax on spending up to the poverty level earnings.
No because how they define poverty is insane unless you live in the boonies in a "flyover state".
"In 2020, in the United States, the poverty threshold for a single person under 65 was an annual income of US$12,760, or about $35 per day."
The FairTax is ideal for the rich because it will never be progressive and will always be regressive. It's a bad deal for anyone else.
That's not a slight sacrifice. Road Rallying is my major hobby.
Oh please, you can just get a new hobby. Stop trying to deflect and just own your selfishness.
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You make no sense. As for the hobby, I have 46 years in it and fancy myself as the best TSD navigator currently running. IOW its a skill. I don't have another 46 years to get good at something else, I'm 75.
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Then the best thing you could do for the world is to just die already.
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Libertarians like you are sooooo disconnected from reality that is would be sad if it wasn't so funny.
Nothing to do with reliance. (Score:5, Insightful)
Calling it "cutting reliance on China" is a great PR move but the truth is they are simply looking for cheaper slave labor. The cost of labor in China has been slowly growing and as such, Apple is looking for other cheap places so that they can threaten to completely move production to another country so that they get a special deal.
This is 100% about money and the ability to suppress labor costs.
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Calling it "cutting reliance on China" is a great PR move but the truth is they are simply looking for cheaper slave labor. The cost of labor in China has been slowly growing and as such, Apple is looking for other cheap places so that they can threaten to completely move production to another country so that they get a special deal.
This is 100% about money and the ability to suppress labor costs.
First, this is not just Apple; so quit with the Hate.
Second, there are a bunch of other reasons besides risng wages why China is becoming less-desireable. Rampant IP theft and ignoring Patents is among the topmost; but possible thorny issues with China over Taiwan (remember, TSMC?) makes Apple (and other tech OEMs) understandably nervous.
Bottom line: The world is both more complex and more simple than is analyzed in your typical Slashdot comment. Even my own!
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First, this is not just Apple;
True
so quit with the Hate.
Why would I stop hating them when I can simply hate all the corporations that do this? Hate is not a finite resource.
Second, there are a bunch of other reasons besides risng wages why China is becoming less-desireable.
True but profits are the most important thing for publicly traded corporations.
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Second, there are a bunch of other reasons besides risng wages why China is becoming less-desireable.
True but profits are the most important thing for publicly traded corporations.
Not always. Sometimes, like with the TSMC dependency, it is a matter of contingency-planning.
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Nope. None of the locations they are looking to move to even have modern fabs, much less cutting edge fabs. The only contingency for TSMC evaporating is to design for another process and get it fabbed somewhere. Since there would be a world-wide disturbance of other people being not being prepared, Apple isn't about to spend money being prepared when they can simply cry to the US government to get "relief" funds.
Stop thinking publicly traded corporations are responsible and start thinking about how everyth
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Nope. None of the locations they are looking to move to even have modern fabs, much less cutting edge fabs. The only contingency for TSMC evaporating is to design for another process and get it fabbed somewhere. Since there would be a world-wide disturbance of other people being not being prepared, Apple isn't about to spend money being prepared when they can simply cry to the US government to get "relief" funds.
Stop thinking publicly traded corporations are responsible and start thinking about how everything ground to a halt when there was a disturbance in supply chains. It will happen again and again. Growth in quarterly profits are the only thing that matters to publicly traded corporations.
Taiwan (TSMC) is a problem for not only Apple. And you can bet that Apple has at least one other SoC Manufacturer they can bring online within a quarter. Component price for those SoCs will suffer; but it won't be catastrophic.
Apple was only minimally-affected, even during the worst of the supply-chain woes.
Obviously, there are companies who are better at Logistics and Sourcing than others. Apple is one of the best.
It's how it works (Score:4, Insightful)