although oddly enough, and I never thought I'd see the day, but because of the continued lockdowns in China, Apple is getting slammed and has now "admitted" to maybe possibly looking at other countries for their supply chain.
Earlier in the year, they were blaming Japan and started moving to more Chinese companies for certain chips, but now the handwriting is on the wall -
Apple’s Overdependence on China Shows in $8 Billion Supply-Chain Snag
Mark Gurman
May 1, 2022, 9:45 AM EDT
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Apple products are primarily assembled in China, and that’s brought headaches in recent years—including supply-chain woes in its latest quarter. The tech giant should now engage in a rapid expansion elsewhere. Also: A look at last quarter’s results and how the company is slowing hiring at some stores. Apple Inc. likes to say that its supply chain is global and that it isn’t overly dependent on China.
The reality is that Apple is tremendously reliant on the country for manufacturing, and this relationship has caused headaches for the company, investors and consumers during the pandemic. That was especially evident on the company’s second-quarter conference call last week, when Apple warned that supply shortages—spurred in large part by Covid-19 lockdowns in China—would reduce sales by as much as $8 billion. That’s like losing an entire quarter’s worth of iPad sales.
During the call, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook reiterated the stance that Apple’s supply chain is “truly global,” with products made everywhere, including the U.S. But it’s clear that the company could shift more of its manufacturing out of China. Cook hinted that Apple may be looking to do more of that, noting that a growing number of chips are produced domestically. “We continue to look at optimizing,” he said. Already, Apple gets many of its components from outside China.
The parts that go into the iPhone, iPad, Mac and other products are made all over the world, from the U.S. to India to Vietnam to Japan. But the real bottleneck in production is the assembly process, better known within Apple and the manufacturing field as FATP. That stands for final assembly, test and pack. The vast majority of Apple devices go through that process in China. That’s why your MacBook Pro, iPad or iPhone probably says, “Assembled in China.”
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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-05-01/will-apple-aapl-move-more-of-its-supply-chain-out-of-china-l2nchsuj
For some interesting reason, Europe is able to do more restrictions and a higher level of regulatory enforcement when compared to the U.S. and then that means we end up paying more because we are subsidizing the rest of the world (the same goes for pharmaceuticals).
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