Recently, Bloomberg reported that Apple plans to start producing the latest iPhone 14 in India two months after the iPhone 14 is on the market, in order to shorten the time gap between Indian foundries and domestic foundries. Previously, india's production of new iPhones was basically 6 to 9 months behind the domestic one, and this time Apple accelerated the time difference between Indian foundries, and the industry generally believed that Apple's move was to diversify its supply chain.
In addition to the new iPhone, what other products have Apple transferred to foreign production?
Friends who are familiar with Apple's recent dynamics, it is estimated that Apple's approach this time is not surprising, after all, Apple has recently begun to transfer more and more foundry business to foreign countries. In the first half of 2022, Apple began to transfer the airpods 3 production line to Vietnam, producing about 3 million to 4 million AirPods, accounting for 15% of Apple's wireless headphone production.
In addition, earlier this year, Apple also began trial production of Apple Watch and Mac laptops in Vietnam. The report also said that in addition to the Apple Watch and Macbook, Apple also intends to transfer the production line of the HomePod to Vietnam. This also means that the Apple products we buy in the future will have three domestically produced products from India, Vietnam and China mixed together.
Made in Vietnam and India, is it really that good?
For Vietnamese manufacturing, in fact, consumers who bought Nike shoes in the early days should have a deep feeling. The quality is basically inferior to that of domestic production, and after a period of use, there will be degumming and other situations, and the service life is not long. When it comes to electronic products, Vietnamese manufacturing does not seem to be able to make everyone very reassured.
Like Apple's Airpods 3 before, many users in China have purchased Airpods 3 made in Vietnam, and the result is indeed unacceptable. Many users have responded to a series of assembly problems such as raw edges, glue overflow, and lid shaking.
Also affected by Vietnam's quality control problems is the camera manufacturer Ricoh. After receiving the product, many users also began to react that there were cross keys twisted seven twists and eight, and function button letters horizontal seven vertical eight. Subsequently, due to large-scale quality control problems, Ricoh officials also opened a free maintenance plan.
Going around, and finally domestic incense?
Although there have been many foundries moving to Southeast Asian countries recently, from the overall point of view, the domestic manufacturing industry still has an advantage. Some of these companies have returned to China after moving to Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam. For example, Samsung, which is actively moving to Vietnam.
A few years ago, Samsung successively transferred its mobile phone, TV and other production lines to Vietnam, India and other countries. However, recently, Samsung's official Weibo sent a message saying that Samsung executives want to transfer the processing of mobile phones from Vietnam to domestic development in the fourth quarter of this year. At the same time, it is revealed that Samsung will also build a factory in Shaanxi to produce NAND memory chips, and invest 22.9 billion yuan in the factory for the installation of equipment.
Summary:
Although more and more technology manufacturers are moving their production lines to Southeast Asian countries with lower labor costs, it is not difficult to find that the vast majority of their parts are supplied by our domestic companies. Countries such as Vietnam and India are more like an "assembly plant". What's more, we still have a big advantage in transportation and other aspects. It is not difficult to understand why Samsung, which went out, is now back in China