Since the Sino-US technology war, Apple has planned to decouple from China, and it is now infinitely close to success.
The disassembly results of the latest Apple mobile phone iPhone 15 Pro Max show that the components from the Chinese mainland have dropped to 2%, and the downward trend has remained unchanged year by year.
Fomalhaut TechnoSolutions, an authoritative disassembly agency, found that the latest iPhone 15 Pro Max disassembly found that according to the proportion of parts cost from different countries and regions, American-made parts ranked first, accounting for more than 33%; South Korea's parts ranked second, accounting for about 29%; Japanese parts continued to maintain a 10% ratio, occupying the third place, Taiwan's supply of parts accounted for 9%, and the mainland's share shrank to 2%. Apple's "de-Chinaization" strategy is beginning to bear fruit.
Apples drifting away
At one time, Chinese mainland was Apple's most important assembly place, and around the Foxconn assembly plant, the mainland has built a series of parts suppliers to provide Apple with high-quality and low-cost parts.
Originally, the cooperation between the two sides was pleasant, hello and hello, but as the Sino-US science and technology war intensified, Apple also made a choice, gradually separated from China, reduced the purchase and use of Chinese mainland parts, so there has been a situation that the proportion of mainland parts has decreased year by year in recent years.
Public data shows that in the Apple 13 era, mainland parts accounted for about 4.5%, Apple 14 series accounted for 3.8%, and by 15 series this proportion has been reduced to 2%. In sharp contrast, the proportion of parts made in the United States has increased year by year, from 22.6% to 33%.
In addition to reducing the purchase of parts, another move by Apple is to transfer assembly lines from China to neighboring countries such as India and Vietnam.
In recent years, India has vigorously developed its electronics industry, and Prime Minister Modi has shouted the "target of $300 billion in electronics by 2026" and wants India to play a greater role in the global mobile phone supply chain.
Apple also took advantage of this shareholder wind and began to make eye contact with India. Before 2022, Apple's mobile phone assembly orders were only distributed to India for 4%.
Cook also set a goal of moving 25 percent of its assembly orders to India by 2025, and will also assemble the latest phones in India. Soon, the Apple phone you use may be assembled in India.
During his latest trip to India, Cook put forward the latest goal in front of senior officials of the Indian government, which is to increase the proportion of "Make in India" to 60% in the next 5 years. In Cook's vision, using India's cheap labor to further compress the assembly cost of Apple's mobile phones and increase the company's profits.
In the eyes of capitalists, profit is everything, as long as it can improve profits, it has always been unafraid to try. However, increasing the layout in India, for Apple, may not really be as good as Cook thinks.
India, which has always been known as the "foreign-funded harvester", has always fattened foreign companies first and then eaten meat, and the mainland mobile phone company Xiaomi is a clear example.
Xiaomi has worked hard in India for several years, but was punished by the Indian official once, and returned the original profits of many years to India, which can be described as "India makes money Indian flowers, and they want to take it home."
Maybe in the future, Apple is likely to encounter a similar situation, don't think that the American company India does not dare to move, after all, barefoot is not afraid to wear shoes, India even dares to blatantly copy the patented drugs of the United States, not to mention the "justified" fine?
What is the impact of Apple's de-Sinicization?
For Apple, China is a very important market, sales occupy the second place in the company's revenue all year round, as the de-sinicization becomes more and more obvious, Apple's market share will gradually decline, in the Apple de-Sinicization at the same time, China is also de-Appleization.
Something similar has already happened to the American computer manufacturer Dell. Unlike Apple's quiet de-Chineseization, in 2022, Dell shouted de-Sinicization in a high profile, for fear that Chinese didn't know it was going to run.
In the second quarter of 2023, Dell's sales suffered a slash, down 52% year-on-year, and its market share hit a new low. The market that Dell gave way was quickly occupied by domestic brand computers, one Dell fell, and several Chinese brands stood up.
Apple's de-Sinicization is currently experiencing a similar situation. Weekly shipments from September 25 to October 1 (week 40) showed that Apple sold 990,000 units that week, down from Huawei's 1.1 million.
After the release of Huawei's new 5G machine, sales rose rapidly, and if it were not subject to insufficient supply, it would surely be able to climb again. In the high-end mobile phone market, Apple's share is all eaten by Huawei, after all, in this price market, only these two brands can compete.
Although the sales ranking has declined, Apple's decline will certainly not be too fast, after all, there are still many loyal fans among consumers, and their usage habits cannot be changed at once. And holding an apple in hand has an inexplicable sense of superiority, which also makes some people flock to it.
For Apple, de-Sinicization means a gradual decline in sales, and for the original mainland suppliers, once they lose Apple orders and do not have new mobile phone brands to take over in time, they are likely to face the risk of bankruptcy, which will cause a large number of workers to lose their jobs.
But fortunately, in recent years, the rise of domestic brand mobile phones, coupled with the return of Huawei's 5G king, the situation of domestic foundries is not so bad, but has ushered in more orders and development opportunities.
Foreign brands are unreliable, and they have to rely on their brother brands at critical moments, and it is important to cultivate their own complete industrial chain.
The reason why China does not move Apple
Apple and China are gradually moving away, and many people can't understand, since they don't want to do a good job in China, why not take advantage of it before it is gone? The United States has done everything to Huawei in recent years, and they are also mobile phones, so why can't the mainland learn from the "advanced experience" of the United States?
In fact, learning from the United States is very simple, but if it is really done like that, it will definitely be worth the loss.
First of all, Apple currently has a large part of the mobile phone assembly business in the mainland, maintaining the employment and normal life of many workers. If we really take sanctions against them, it will inevitably have a huge impact on these workers, which is completely a trick to kill the enemy and self-damage 800, and the effort is disproportionate to the gain.
Second, as the United States becomes more and more closed, we still hold high the banner of globalization. Since we want to continue to promote globalization, we must treat every enterprise that invests in China well, so that gathering and scattering is the right way. You can't follow India's example, specializing in "foreign-funded harvesters", and finally make trouble for foreign companies to be cautious and dare not enter.
Third, it is not realistic to directly decouple and break the chain. No matter where Apple mobile phones are manufactured, there are still a large number of Apple fans in China. The huge fan base is already accustomed to Apple, and from the consumer's point of view, it is impossible to drive Apple away with an executive order.
Instead of forcing consumers to make choices, it is better to subtly change consumer habits, and when Apple gradually distances itself from China, many consumers will surely make rational choices.
As Apple continues to promote "de-Chinaization", the decline in sales in the Chinese market is a sure thing. Apple's choice is destined for its trend in the Chinese market, and whether Apple can bear the consequences may have results in the near future.
Sad Foxconn
Apple is getting out of Chinese mainland, leaving Foxconn in trouble. Of course, the main reason for this suffering was the work of Gou Taiming and Foxconn themselves.
On October 22, 2023, the national tax department conducted a tax audit of Foxconn's factories in Jiangsu, Guangdong and other places, and the natural resources department investigated the use of Foxconn's enterprise land in Henan and Hubei.
After the news broke, many people knew that Foxconn must have done something taboo, and it was the kind that stepped on the red line. The reason is that Foxconn did not put itself in the right position, and the boss Gou Taiming was unashamed to publicly say many times that "Foxconn appreciates mainland food" in order to campaign.
Musk, the boss of the high-tech enterprise Tesla, is respectful and careful every time he comes to China, not a high-tech enterprise TSMC, where does the boss Gou have the confidence to dare to look down on the mainland so much?
At the beginning, we welcomed Foxconn to set up factories in the mainland, but not because it had any advanced technology, to put it bluntly, Foxconn is a labor-intensive electronic product assembly factory, and garment factories, shoes and socks factories are one nature, there is no high-tech at all.
The reason why the green light is given to let it in also gives particularly favorable conditions, mainly because of the driving role of the assembly plant on the entire industrial chain.
When the assembly plant comes, the relevant supporting factories in the industrial chain will also come, and we can use this to incubate our own local supply chain enterprises, and then create our own complete mobile phone industry chain and cultivate domestic top mobile phones.
If it were not for Foxconn's ready-made assembly plant to help us cultivate the industrial chain, presumably Foxconn would not have so many preferential conditions for entering the mainland. In recent years, with the continuous improvement of our own industrial chain, there has also been a mainland own assembly plant, which can completely replace Foxconn.
After the mainland did not use Foxconn to "enjoy rice", Gou Taiming followed Apple's pace and went to India to set up a factory, hoping to use India's cheap labor to create more wealth.
As a result, Gou, who invested 19.5 billion US dollars and ambitiously built 12 factories in India, because of the laziness of the Indians and the Indian government's appetite, not only did not make a profit but also suffered a serious loss after three years of construction, and repeating the myth of the mainland factory in those years has become a fool's dream.
In July 2023, Gou decided to completely abandon the Indian factory, and the previous investment of 19.5 billion US dollars should be wasted and directly dismissed.
When Foxconn arrived in India, it jumped out of such a dead end, and I don't know if Apple can get rid of the same fate as Foxconn after rushing into it.
Although China and India are both populous countries, not anyone has a qualified labor force, China can let Apple leave freely, but India may not be so, can only say that the resolute "de-Chineseization" of Apple seeks its own blessings.