December 5, 2022
Following China’s strict COVID-19 policy and the November mass worker protests at its Foxconn factory, Apple is moving quickly to shift some of its production outside of China.
It is now instructing suppliers to plan more actively for assembling Apple products elsewhere in Asia, particularly in India and Vietnam, and to reduce reliance on Taiwanese assemblers led by Foxconn.
Furthermore, the trade war between the United States and China has resulted in the emergence of several trade sanctions, but Apple has managed to navigate these geopolitics relatively unscathed.
It has had less success in avoiding disruption after a pandemic. China maintains strict zero-tolerance lockdowns in order to contain COVID-19 outbreaks. Several times in the last two years, these measures have brought iPhone factories to a halt.
According to analysts and people in the Apple supply chain, these upheavals mean Apple no longer feels comfortable having so much of its business tied up in one place. These factors have also prompted Apple to instruct its manufacturing partners to begin attempting to do more of this work outside of China.
The sources for this piece includes an article in 9TO5MAC.
