Apple’s crippling dependence on Communist China can no longer be ignored

Apple depends on a small number of very large factories in China and Taiwan for much of its product assembly. But, harsh CCP-imposed COVID lockdowns in China are spawning pushback and protests, jeopardizing iPhone, Mac, and other products’ production, leaving Apple with few options in the near term.
Quality assurance, iMac production, China (Image via Apple’s Supplier Responsibility 2020 Progress Report)
Timothy Green for The Motley Fool:

In mainland China, Foxconn’s assembly lines churn out Apple products at an immense scale. Foxconn’s main plant in Zhengzhou employs 200,000 people, and the company is ultimately responsible for around 70% of global iPhone production.
There have always been massive risks associated with Apple’s manufacturing strategy, and they have been well known for years. For one, depending on such a small number of suppliers for something as critical as iPhone assembly puts Apple at risk of major disruption if something goes wrong at one of those massive plants.
That concentration risk is supercharged by the fact that these plants are largely located in China and Taiwan. Relations between the U.S. and China are tense, and Taiwan is caught in the middle of that souring relationship…
The fragility of Apple’s approach to manufacturing didn’t matter until it suddenly did… Apple’s profits have surged over the past two years, but there’s a real chance that some of those gains will be unwound as the company grapples with challenges posed by its extreme dependence on China.

MacDailyNews Take: Yup.
See also: Tim Cook firmly latched Apple onto China’s CCP teat. What’s his plan for weaning it off? – MacDailyNews, November 2, 2022
Please help support MacDailyNews. Click or tap here to support our independent tech blog. Thank you!
Shop The Apple Store at Amazon.

The post Apple’s crippling dependence on Communist China can no longer be ignored appeared first on MacDailyNews.