Apple asks suppliers to shift some AirPods, Beats production to India

Apple is asking its assemblers to move some AirPods and Beats headphone production to India for the first time, Nikkei Asia reported on Wednesday, in what looks to be an another win for India’s push for local manufacturing.
Apple’s third generation AirPods feature spatial audio and industry-leading sound, longer battery life, and an all-new design.
Cheng Ting-Fang for Nikkei Asia:

The move is part of Apple’s gradual diversification from China, as it looks to lower the risk of supply chain disruptions stemming from the country’s strict zero-COVID policy and tensions with the U.S.
Apple has been talking with a number of its suppliers about increasing production in India, including of key acoustics devices, as early as next year, three people familiar with the matter told Nikkei Asia. In response, iPhone assembler Foxconn is preparing to make Beats headphones in the country, and hopes to eventually produce AirPods there as well, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said…
Bringing AirPods and Beats production to India would enlarge Apple’s production footprint in the country, following a recent announcement that the latest iPhone is already being made there… While manufacturing in India was initially aimed at serving the massive local market, Apple is now developing the country as a strategic production base, with exports intended for markets such as Europe, sources briefed on the matter said.
Joey Yen, a tech analyst with IDC, told Nikkei Asia that… “China’s continuing Covid-zero policies are also pushing tech companies to seek alternatives, and India in the long run could have an opportunity to grow…”

MacDailyNews Take: Diversify, diversify, diversify!
Note to the CCP: “Zero-COVID” is a pipe dream.
As we wrote nearly a year ago:
In general, human-transmissible coronaviruses do not disappear. There is no such thing as zero-COVID.
COVID-19 is here to stay. It will very likely become endemic, yet pose less danger over time. People will acquire immunity via vaccines (effectiveness TDB) and naturally as they contract and recover from variants like omicron since the partially-effective vaccines permit not only transmissibility, but also breakthrough infections.
Influenza and the four human coronaviruses that cause common colds (OC43, 229E, NL63 and HKU1) are, of course, also endemic, but a combination of annual flu vaccines and acquired immunity means that sane societies tolerate the unavoidable seasonal deaths and illnesses they bring without requiring lockdowns, masks, social distancing, indefinite return-to-work delays, etc.
At which point, if ever, will some people decide that wasting away their short lives in abject fear of a bad flu, very likely engineered by China and partially funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, is a hysterical self-defeating overreaction?

The real virus is the panic. – MacDailyNews, March 9, 2020
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